Customer Reviews

After This Our Exile

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This movie has potential to be a great movie. For those of us that are into Asian movies, we would know that Aaron Kwok, better known for his dancing & singing prowess is making this sort of artsy fartsy movie now to get some credibility. Truth to be told, he's very good at it, playing a loser husband to the woman who subequently gave up upon his false promise to give up gambling. He's also a lousy father to the son who's a keen observer to the plight between his father & mother. Much of the movie dwells into what the father coerces the son to do to serve his own means to pay back debts that he couldn't repay to the loan sharks & to make ends meet. The father is in fine form once again giving false promises to the son to turn a new leaf. By then, the son's mother has long gone & the boy aptly names Boy in the movie has to fend for himself. We truly can feel the sense of hopelessness & sadness in the boy's eyes. Along the way, the father befriends a prostitute & that subplot doesn't seem to go anywhere. In the end, the story comes to its climax & then, the flashbacks & flashforward & the editing don't seem to give us resolve or to tie the pieces together. In ten years time, the Boy has grown up & nothing is said of that period. He seems to become a man of good stature but how especially when he is sent to the youth detention centre after being caught stealing? Why doesn't the mother who cares for him stops contacting him anymore? Why doesn't the son compels to visit his father again even when he sees him across the river? Perhaps, the Director deliberately makes this an open ending but truth to be told, this movie is better off having a resolve & only then, it can be differentiated from good to great movie. Yes, this movie shows tremendous potential especially when all actors and actresses here are VERY prominent in Taiwan & Hong Kong in particular and it's rather interesting to have them dressing down and involving in a mini project such as this in the faraway land of Malaysia. For once, the sex scene is rather explicit and not in an exploitative way. Perhaps, this also gives those actors and actresses "street" credibility for sacrificing themselves in the name of art. A commendable movie that seems to fizzle off in the end. It reminds me of Will Smith's Pursuit of Happyness where it's also between father & son, and it's rather morbid concentrating upon their struggle to make their ends meet and nothing else. No extra at all in the DVD.