Echoes of the Rainbow
Posted:
10 Mar 2010
Echoes of the Rainbow is set in a working-class neighbourhood in1960s Hong Kong. It has the structure of a traditional weepie, at once tastefully old-fashioned and spontaneously heartwarming. Many of its characters are unmistakably poor, though happy and dignified. It foists upon us the steadfast belief that good times and hard times are but cyclical happenings in life. None of its values or sentiments feel remotely contemporary. In short, it’s just the type of film we needed.
Based on writer-director Alex Law’s own childhood, Echoes of the Rainbow reconstructs his family life as a goofy eight-year-old – nicknamed ‘Big Ears’ here and played by child actor Buzz Chung with disarming charm – who lives with his diligent shoemaker father (a convincingly weary Simon Yam), his streetsmart mother (Sandra Ng, alternately at her loving and bluffing best), and his role model of a 16-year-old brother (Aarif Lee), an athletic student who’s smitten with his wealthy, yet impeccably kind and innocent schoolmate (Evelyn Choi).
While the constants of 60s life – from typhoons to corruption, class division, incurable disease, and not enough moon cakes – get in the way, the thoroughly likeable characters fight on against the march of time. Detractors will deride this nostalgic melodrama for being preachy, borderline saccharine, and mawkishly life-affirming; but those, in this age of plenty, are precisely what lift Echoes of the Rainbow above our cinema’s usual fare. The most unorthodox achievement of the film, playing like a fable in this day and age, is that it exists at all.
Edmund Lee
Dir Alex Law, Category IIA, 117 mins, opens March 11
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This is a brilliant review - I've been having my exams for the last few weeks so I'm finally going to be able to watch this movie tomorrow. Look forward to it after reading this!
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