leap year

it was one of those nights again… nothing to do, no major tennis tourney making channel-surfing the natural thing to do. similar to how i found out about kokuhaku and the tin mine, i happened to stop on channel 37 and there seemed to be an interesting movie being shown. it has just started so i stayed on.

the movie is the leap years, a singaporean film production about li-ann, “a strong believer of the soul mate theory, who rejects all men, especially her best friend KS” and her love affair with jeremy. they met in february 29, 1980 in singapore, promised to meet each other every leap year. li-ann was heartbroken when jeremy admitted that he already had a family and has a 3-year old daughter. li-ann then tried to move on by marrying reymond but chose to run after jeremy upon KS’ coaxing. li-ann and jeremy’s love affair spanned 20 years but they ended up being together.

anyone could easily dismiss the movie as laughable or silly. i also think it is. hahaha! imagine waiting for four long years to again meet someone you really like (and in li-ann’s case, one that she wanted to spend the rest of life with) and doing nothing in between to make that happen. of course, there are a lot of ways to get the other person’s number of contact information but both characters did not do so. there were a lot of unexplained gaps such as why li-ann’s mom did not figure significantly in her life and was a mere “giver of birthday soups”. or why the need to put in joan chen (older li-ann) and not concentrate on the younger li-ann and jeremy (wong lilin and ananda everingham) instead. like what other people were saying, most characters were one dimensional, not much to root for and the circumstances were shallow.

but then again, i wasn’t really looking for an outstandingly logical treat that night. what caught my attention were the familiar streets of chinatown in singapore, the shophouses off maxwell road and the skyscrapers near tanjong pagar. it is after all, the first singaporean-made film that i got the chance to see. the movie’s songs were also good. mellow but catchy, really apt to that overall melodic feel, especially during the latter part of the movie. wong lilin and ananda everingham also had that chemistry, which made their love story relatively more believable.

if you’re looking for a noteworthy romantic film, the leap years is not for you. but if it’s just to while away time and do other things while watching a film, it should be ok. do not expect much ‘though.