Somewhere Only We Know - movie review (no SPOILERs)

I went to see the Chinese movie Somewhere Only We Know (有一个地方只有我们知道) this morning because there's a young man in it whom I fancy (see above). From the trailers, I was expecting a goofy and/or mawkish romantic comedy, but was delighted instead to watch a beautifully made and entirely grown-up film about moving on from loss - and to discover that Kris can act. :)

The Mandarin-language movie was shot in Prague, comparing and contrasting the present-day romance between cellist Ze Yang (Kris Wu) and student Jin Tian (Wang Li Kun), and the WWII-era romance between Jin Tian's grandmother (played by director Xu Jinglei, I think) and a Czech doctor (Gordon Alexander). When Kris was in the Kpop boyband Exo, his "concept" was to be the cool, even cold guy - which didn't quite succeed, as his natural dorkiness keep surfacing. Ze Yang is quite different, solid yet sensitive. His relationship with Jin Tian isn't swept around by the currents of history, but just ordinary human mistakes and problems.

The comparative sexual conservatism of the movie puts much more emphasis on the character's thoughts and feelings than on their physical relationship - their faces rather than their bodies, if you will - which meant I got to watch Kris producing intelligent and convincing readings of his lines, and not maintaining a carefully blank expression, like rather too many young Hollywood slash television stars in the West, who seem worried about perturbing their perfect looks with anything more than a slight frown.* (Of course, he's not called on to work as hard as Gordon Alexander, who at one point has to convey simultaneous glee and grief so intense it looks as though they will shake him to pieces.)

There's nothing startlingly original about the film's plot, but the story I'm really pleased with is the metastory. Sidelined and frustrated, especially at being given no opportunities to pursue acting, last year he sued to get out of his Kpop contract and returned to China, where he's been working non-stop. The characters in SOWK are looking to begin new lives; Kris has done just that.


* Although of course I was also fascinated by Kris' famously large hands and his multiple earring holes. Eyebrow game also strong and those legs continue to go all the way up.