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2 Young (2005)

Director: Tung-Shing Yee

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From Time Out London

It’s a case of love across the social divide for Hong Kong teens Nam (Chinese pop star Fiona Sit) and Fu (Jackie Chan’s son Jaycee Fong, also a singer). As this drama traces the beginnings of their romance – hesitant school dances, clandestine meetings, parental disapproval – it’s likeable stuff; Sit’s infectious smile lights up the screen and emphasises the film’s gentle character humour. But when a scandal rocks both their families, the couple must flee and the film loses its way. If it’s meant to be about reality setting in after the first flushes of love, it fails: the pair aren’t convincingly intimate in the first place, so their descent into monosyllabic communication has little impact other than fostering boredom. Fong’s flat performance does nothing to help either. The sudden, preachy conclusion is all too neat, fashioning a contrived end to a film that showed early promise as a simple teen romance. You can’t help feeling that if this were American, it’d be going straight to daytime TV.

Author: AS 2005-11-28 16:26:12

Time Out London Issue 1841: November 30-December 7 2005