Fly Me To Polaris (1999)Onion's been blind and mute since childhood, and he's been housed in a hospice for years. For more than a year of this time, trainee nurse Autumn has been caring for him and spilling thoughts to her silent confidante. And she's been gradually falling for him. And he for her. Love is brewing and just when Autumn should tell her companion of her hidden feelings, he's unceremoniously mown down by a car. Now dead, Onion (Richie Yen) joins the queue of souls heading to the Polaris (Heaven). His death was bad timing for the nascent relationship but at least he's in luck on the way to the afterlife - every 10 billionth entrant wins a wish and guess who's the chosen one. Onion chooses to revisit Hong Kong able to speak and see. And the wish is granted with a catch - nobody will recognise him, he won't be able to identify himself and has only five days of living. He heads straight back to the land of the living to follow up with his Autumn (Cecilia Cheung) and somehow shed light on, and finally close, a relationship that never was. Much of the plot centres around a simple premise - breaking self-imposed hurdles and telling your partner you love him or her. While Derek Chiu's Sealed With a Kiss does this so much better, I can't say Fly Me To Polaris' simplified take bothered me that much. If viewers somehow miss the main plot, it's given again with Autumn overcoming her fear of swimming. Yes, it's all really convoluted and unrealistic, and it's designed to make your popcorn soggy with tears, but at least it's direct and simple. Yet for all its blatant tearjerking, a few subtle devices work well. Most noticeable is how the camerawork hugs the hospice and its surrounding trees. Excepting a remarkably speedy pan over the Central and Western skyline, there's nothing to put the hospice in the Hong Kong context until Onion can see. Certainly not the most dramatic film device... but it clicks into place once Onion tells a radio host that she was his only link to the outside world when he was blind. Plot notwithstanding, the Cecilia Cheung's is a good reason to watch this sobfest. She cries, she shines and she acts up a storm. Terrific! And that's just as well since you need a strong actor to make up for the other two leads. Richie Yen's conspicuously dubbed and his acting is hardly convincing; not only because he can dance and pirouette down a garden path, blind. William So comes across as dreadfully slimy - fitting for his role as someone Cecilia's character should show no interest for. Possibly in keeping with So's mushy crooner image, the soundtrack is a letdown of an overly dramatic score and far too much saxaphone. The music is as smoothly calculated as the script it follows. But for some reason I still couldn't help getting sucked right into this drama. DVD information: Deltamac have put this one out with the Golden Harvest imprint clear on the packaging. The picture is simply astounding - the tones crisp and true-to-life. It's a terrific delivery for the film and most satisfying to watch. Disc features include a music video, trivial bilingual bios for Richie Yen and Cecilia Cheung, a couple of chapter screens and three sets of subs (English and 2 x Chinese). There is no trailer. All copies in the HK stores as of mid-January 2000 come with either a freebie jigsaw puzzle or a bottle of moisturiser - the exciting purchase choice is yours! Hardly the kind of supplements I would have specified for movie buffs; a gratuitous Cecilia Cheung photo gallery would have sufficed instead, thank you. |
Credits: Directed by Jingle Ma Chor-sing |
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