Ren jian xi ju (2001) Reviews

• Interlocking tales from Taiwan

  gmwhite2006-08-06

  Having seen the other movies by Hung Hung, I must say that this is certainly the best of them. It consists of four tales, fairly separate, though the characters from one sometimes appear in another. The main link between the tales seems to be thematic, organised around different stories from the 'Book of Filial Pieties', a very influential classical work that tells stories about children's acts of self-sacrifice for the sake of their elders. The title itself seems an evocation of Balzac's Comedy Humaine, and rather than suggesting a slapstick kind of 'comedy', it consists in the observation of human characters and the relations between them. As for the stories themselves, the first is about a lonely shoe store sales girl whose only love is Tony Leung. She barely seems to live her life, not interacting with, or even noticing, the people around her. Her fantasy world seems to be all she cares about. The second story is about A-Xing, one of the players in an avant-garde play called The White Tide. His problems are divided between the finicky director (who is dying of AIDS), and his conservative mother, who will be coming to Taipei to see the play. The third story is about a couple looking for a new flat on account of the fiancée's extreme dislike of the roaches in their current flat. The fourth story is about a real estate salesman visiting his wife in hospital during a typhoon. All of the tales seem to entail the theme of sacrifice for another, though this theme is not hammered into the viewer. The characters are allowed to exist very much as real people rather than cut-outs in a moral fable. There was plenty of humour also, and some real laugh-out-loud moments, though the humour was deeper than the usual sitcom variety, and came naturally out of the interactions between characters, which when seen by a detached eye, can indeed be quite entertaining. The closest thing I can think of to this film would be the Dekalog series of Kieslowski, though more concise and humorous. The actors all acquit themselves well, which is important for a character based movie. The cinematography was thoughtful, without being obtrusively overdone, and the direction was, on the whole, just right for the story being told. The Human Comedy is a film that should be quite accessible for any viewer. Those already interested in Taiwanese or Asian cinema should give it a look, though others should also find plenty to enjoy in it too.

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