FILMS/
SECRET
Bu Neng Shuo De Mi Mi
New Directors
Taiwan, 2007, 101 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Wed, Apr 30 / 6:15 / Kabuki / SECR30K
Fri, May 2 / 1:30 / Kabuki / SECR02K
Sun, May 4 / 9:00 / Clay / SECR04Y
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jay Chou
- prod
-
J.R. Yang
- scr
-
To Chi-long
- cam
-
Lee Ping-bing
- editor
-
Cheung Ka-fei
- mus
-
Terdsak Janpan, Jay Chou
- cast
-
Jay Chou, Kwai Lun-mei, Anthony Wong
- source
-
Edko Films Limited, 1212 Tower Two, Admiralty Ctr, 18 Harcourt Road, 040 Hong Kong, China. FAX: 852-2529-5277. EMAIL: makolivia@edkofilm.com.hk
Taiwanese pop superstar Jay Chou clearly knows the secret of success. Perhaps the world’s most popular Mandarin-language recording artist, he has also made well received forays into acting, including roles in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Initial D (2005) and Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower (2006). With Secret, Chou establishes himself as not only a gifted performer but also a skillful auteur, directing a script based on his own original story. Chou plays Lun, a music student at the Tamkang Secondary School (the director’s alma mater), a seemingly timeless place where uniformed students engage in innocent flirtations and heated “piano battles” (Chou faces off against Nan Quan Mama’s Zhan Yuhao for the Chopin title). One day in the old music room, Lun encounters Yu (Kwai Lun-mei) playing an evocative tune. The mysteries of that melody and of Yu herself will come to haunt Lun’s life. When Lun sees a photograph of Yu with his father (the perennially entertaining Anthony Wong), Secret’s delicate teen romance rises to a crescendo of blood-on-the-keys supernatural melodrama. While most of the story is told from Lun’s point of view, the sweetly teasing, birdlike Yu is the film’s elusive emotional center, and Kwai’s performance lends added poignancy as both Yu and Lun play for—and through—time.
—Juliet Clark
Presented with support from Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices, San Francisco. North American Premiere. Sponsored by KTSF Channel 26.
