review by Neo
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SPIDER
LILIES (2007-HK/TAIWAN)
review by Neo
Support
the Site by Buying from YesAsia
A
beautiful, yet unfulfilling romance…
It seems that Taiwanese cinema is finally re-establishing in a manner of art
house flicks. With Silk, Eternal Summer and now Spider Lilies, there is no question
of doubt that Taiwanese directors are wonderful talents. While Spider Lilies
seem rather commercial on the cover of the artwork, with the cute-eyed Raine
Yang and the almost unrecognisable Isabella Leong, there is little questioning
that it attracted a lot of a certain gender’s attention. Full credit must
be given to Isabella, who has now taken a path to a career stepwise an inch
closer to Best Actress glory, with 2005’s Isabella and now this. With
that being said, Spider Lilies is certainly a beautiful film to watch and the
constant cuteness of Raine is always going to add further viewing points, but
the film ultimately remains slightly lacking and leaving the audience rather
unfulfilling.
The movie goes like this:
Rainie Yang plays cute webcam girl Jade, who wants to get a tattoo to attract
her online clients. She visits the tattoo parlor run by Takeko (Isabella Leong),
and immediately remembers Takeko to be her childhood crush. Jade sees a stunningly
beautiful spider lily pattern on Takeko's wall. She pleads Takeko to tattoo
that on her body as "a mark of love", without knowing how special
this poisonous flower means to Takeko. Takeko pretends to have forgotten Jade,
but there are actually traumatic experiences that Takeko can never forget...
Director Zero is no stranger to queer movies and apparently won the Taiwanese
Best Director Award for some film called Splendid Float. Here, Zero seamlessly
plays the film like a normal film and making the lesbian scenes all the more
natural without a tick of queerness. Perhaps it is due to the pretty face of
Raine who performs well enough to be acclaimed as an underrated performance.
However, the real star of the show is really Isabella. Perhaps it is due to
her make up or whatever; Isabella is acted like an accomplished actress beaming
with confidence. Neo is daring to say that Isabella is an outside chance to
be the next Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk. At times, Neo felt as though he is watching
someone else, a real TB (tomboy) and now that’s a compliment.
Still, director Zero struggles to create something more, something deeper and
something more relevant. It is a shame that the built up and structure seems
so promising and along with the photogenic faces, one can only wish Zero should
have done more. When the film reaches its conclusion, it fails to answers most
of the questions that it initially raised, which only further hampers the film.
Needless to say, the film is beautiful filmed and the lighting and use of colours
are amazingly beautiful to endure. However, Spider Lilies come up rather short
of its lofty ambitions and the result is an unfulfilling movie and leaving the
audience wanting a lot more. Aside from these short comings, it is almost impossible
to resist the moment when Raine kisses Isabella and their steamy hot sequence.
Without being bias from a male perspective, the film does attempt to say something
about memories. Perhaps it is true that it is human nature to remember the moments
and people that they like and choose to forget moments that they do not want
to remember. While, Neo can relate to the aforementioned line, the film fails
to capitalize on any real issue and once again comes up falling short. Then
again, any of that is unlike to deter the fans of the ultra cute – Raine
Yang…
I
rate it 7.5/10
Comment
on this movie on HK Neo Reviews Forum
Director: Zero Chou
Starring: Rainie Yang, Isabella Leong, John Shen (Shen Jian-Hung), Kris Shie,
Jay Shih (Shih Yuan-Chieh), Chen Yi-Han, Hsieh Ping-Han, Anpanman
Genre: Romance/Lesbians/Tattoos