There’s one deeply unsettling thing about Never Said Goodbye (謊言西西里): most of the characters are way too tolerant. They say the perfect words at the perfect moment — saccharine sentiments that border on cliche but don’t quite go overboard (for the most part).
This tolerance extends beyond the main cast to a bar owner who Xiaoyou (Zhou Dongyu, 周冬雨), the female protagonist, kicks down a flight of stairs and still gives her a second chance. And then there is the ultra-gentle downstairs neighbor (Ethan Juan, 阮經天), who unquestioningly devotes his time to helping Xiaoyou track down her lost dog even though she destroyed his piano.
Xiaoyou, you see, gets away with everything despite her childish and capricious behavior, which is supposed to be endearing in some way. But when you consider the fact that her romantic interest, Junho (Lee Joon-gi), is South Korean, then it all makes sense as this kind of girlfriend stereotype has been a mainstay of the country’s entertainment industry since the 2001 megahit My Sassy Girlfriend.
Photo courtesy of atmovies.com
And Lee plays the stereotypical boyfriend perfectly. Junho woos Xiaoyou with an elaborate flashmob in the school cafeteria and then has to win her heart by eating an obscene amount of pork knuckles. In one scene, he proclaims Xiaoyou his queen and he her knight, chef, repairman (the list goes on) ... and, um, ATM machine. He’s also ridiculously upbeat and positive, and will do anything to make his girlfriend happy. In short, he’s the universal dream beau.
This is another one of those East Asian cross-country collaborations — it’s a Chinese production with a Taiwanese director, Lin Yu-hsien (林育賢), who won a Golden Horse with his 2005 documentary, Jump! Boys (翻滾吧! 男孩), and features a cross-cultural romance with the two leads.
In the beginning, the language differences work well, especially in a scene where Xiaoyou speaks in Korean (she studied the language in college) and Junho replies in Chinese, and then when the conversation gets heated they revert to their native languages. But as the show goes on, Junho eventually starts talking to everyone in Korean, and apparently everyone in Shanghai understands him.
Maybe it is because the entire movie revolves around another stereotypical South Korean plot device — but since it involves a major twist that begins as early as halfway through the film, the Taipei Times cannot possibly ruin it for the audience. It’s actually a decent twist, with the first half told through Xiaoyou’s perspective and the second through Junho’s. It is the only saving grace of the film and it is satisfying to learn why there are so many glaring plot holes in the first half, including why this random dude in a bear suit does this ridiculous dance in front of Xiaoyou.
This doesn’t mean that what happens actually makes sense — you just want to grab Junho by the collar and ask what the hell is wrong with him — it’s more like relief that this film isn’t as sloppy as it initially appears to be.
The actors actually do a good job given what they had to work with, but alas, as mentioned earlier, everything is too “perfect” — down to the fairy tale-esque soundtrack — to make their performances believable.
Never Said Goodbye came out in China on Aug. 9, which was Lovers’ Day (七夕情人節) — when people are excused for watching mushy sap fests — but its Taiwan release date last week does not give it much leeway. Hopefully, you made the right decision and watched a horror flick instead.
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