Following the box-office success of Leste Chen's (陳正道) horror film Heirloom (宅變) last year, the local filmmaker has a new offering for local audiences: a coming-of-age movie about troubled youth and homosexual love titled Eternal Summer (盛夏光年).
The film opens at a seaside elementary school in the picturesque Hualien countryside when well-behaved student Cheng Hsing is tasked by a teacher to help bad boy Shou Heng adjust to school life, and the two become good friends.
Time passes and high-school life ticks along uneventfully until classmate Hui Chia comes between the two friends. The sensitive girl gradually realizes that she will never win the heart of Cheng Hsing, who has been harboring a secret love for his buddy.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FLASH FORWARD ENTERTAINMENT
Hui Chi and Shou Heng become a couple in college, but the Sept. 21, 1999, earthquake opens Heng's eyes to the true nature of Cheng Hsing's feelings.
Not knowing where the love triangle will lead, the trio takes a trip to the seaside. Secrets that have been hidden in their hearts for years are revealed and the revelations mark the end of naive youth.
The film's cinematography is simple and clean with blue tones accentuated, and the scenery includes clammy urban imagery that reflects the muffled restlessness among the three protagonists.
What is surprising about this movie is director Chen's fine portrait of homosexual love. The sex scene between Shou Heng and Cheng Hsing is treated with great care and instead of being arousing or erotic, it portrays the emotional difficulties the two characters feel and the pair's tenderness.
Eternal Summer benefits greatly from accomplished performances by the three main actors. Having starred in the TV series Crystal Boys (孽子) based on the gay novel by Taiwan's Kenneth Pai (白先勇), Chang Hsiao-chuan (張孝全) seems to handle his bisexual role with ease. TV soap-opera actor Chang Jui-chia (張睿家) gives an amazingly vivid portrait of the reticent young repressed gay man while Golden Horse nominee Yang Chi (楊淇) brings to life the straight girl torn between the two.
Whether it is the verdant fields and beaches of Hualien or the damp streets and packed cram school in Taipei, Chen has created a movie full of familiar imagery that local audiences can identify with.
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