After This Our Exile

Year:2004
Director:Patrick Tam Ka-Ming
Cast:Aaron Kwok Fu-Sing, Charlie Young Choi-Nei, Goum Ian Iskandar , Kelly Lin, Valen Hsu, Qin Hailu, Tsui Tin-Yau, Faith Yeung, Qin Hao, Lester Chan Chit-Man
Description:
Aaron
Kwok stars as Shing, a gone-to-seed, deep-in-debt
father whose family has fallen apart - he just doesn't
know it yet. His wife Lin plans on
leaving him, and though her initial attempt is thwarted
by son Lok-Yun , she's soon able
to escape her relationship with Shing. Nobody would
blame her for running away, as Shing is a class-A
lout; he's a man who publicly embarrasses his wife
and even hits her, finally locking her up to prevent
her from leaving. Aside from being abused, Lin has
also been responsible for paying Shing's gambling
debts, and is seeing another man on the side. Once
she sees her chance, she bolts, leaving Shing and
Lok-Yun alone. After a full-on display of expected
emotions, including anger, denial, frustration, and
a little pathetic weeping, Shing must decide what
to do next. He's lost his job, the loan sharks are
after him to pay up, and he's nearly penniless. Luckily
he still has his son's love and filial loyalty. But
with each passing day of Shing's grossly unrepentant
deadbeat status, that bond of blood threatens to become
poisonous.
The Chinese title of
After This Our Exile means "Father and
Son", and despite the presence of Charlie Young,
this is indeed their story. As the besieged Lin, Young
is sympathetic during her initial scenes of domestic
confinement, but she's out of the picture fairly soon,
leaving the father and son to struggle together, and
sometimes apart. Shing and son eventually slip into
a desperate sort of existence, slowly sinking despite
the father's meager attempts at climbing back up.
Watching the pair fuddle about can be frustrating;
Shing avoids the obvious method of getting back on
his feet , and instead resorts to
shadier schemes, like minor theft, plus pimping out
a lonely prostitute who's staying at the
same transient inn as the father-son pair. Shing finds
little success, however, and the effect that it ultimately
has on his son is surprising and even powerful. Young
actor Goum Ian Iskandar gives a genuinely moving performance
as the unfortunate Lok-Yun, whose only real crime
is one of blood relation. Lok-Yun is too innocent
to see that the road he and his father travel may
lead to ruin, and by the time he realizes, it may
be too late. Ultimately, the father and son may scar
each other permanently.
Directed by long-absent
Hong Kong New Wave director Patrick Tam, After
This Our Exile is deceptively simple, possessing
of only a bare bones plot and numerous scenes that
seem more like repetition than plot development. And
yet, the whole unfolds in an engaging manner, using
exacting pacing, performances, and direction to spin
a surprisingly effective tale of family ties gone
wrong. Tam refuses to judge his unfortunate characters,
letting their actions and emotions speak for themselves.
Shing and Lin's relationship is emotionally exhausting
and ugly, yet recognizable and even pathetic affection
exists despite their disintegrated lives. The relationship
between father and son is even more complex and compelling.
Though Shing is more-or-less a complete creep, sympathy
does manage to sneak in, especially because the son
remains so hopeful that they'll make it through their
trials. It's affecting stuff, as our sympathy for
the characters shifts from time to time. As the film
wears on, hope and sympathy rise and fall as each
character makes one unfortunate decision after the
next. Ultimately, there's little to be joyful about,
but the journey surprises in its emotional power.
Aaron Kwok recently won Best
Actor for his performance in After This Our Exile,
marking the second time in two years that the formerly
floppy-haired popstar has managed unexpected critical
acclaim. The acclaim was harder to fathom for Divergence,
where Kwok's emotional gravitas bordered on hammy,
but for After This Our Exile, the actor gives
a complete performance, successfully making his character
into a real and even recognizable individual. Kwok
has matured beyond playing cute kids and brooding
prettyboys, and his decision to take on the role of
a frighteningly inept father is to be commended. The
performance's only debit may be that the character
is perhaps written too broadly, openly revealing so
many sides of the same man that he ends up bordering
on bipolar. But Kwok comes through, filling his character
with acute rage and the kind of blind self-delusion
one can easily see in the people around them every
day. For Kwok, this is brave, uncharted territory.
Message to Aaron Kwok: we will no longer hold Millionaire
Cop against you.
But heaping sizable praise
on Kwok is still a but much, because After This
Our Exile isn't Aaron Kwok's show, it's director
Patrick Tam's. Returning to the director's chair for
the first time since 1989's My Heart is That Eternal
Rose, Tam delivers perhaps the most precise and
exacting work of any Hong Kong director this year.
The film eschews exposition and action for simmering
characters and little movement, yet something vital
seems to be happening in every shot or frame. Tam
only plays the star director during a few key scenes,
generally opting for canny camera placement and precise
editing over showy directorial flourishes. When the
latter moments do occur they can be jarring in their
forced dissonance, but for the most part Tam keeps
a lid on things, letting the audience find their way
into the picture on their own. Results may vary; some
may be drawn in by Tam's willingness to let the film
breathe, while others may find his hands-off approach
to be unbearably boring. This is understandable, as
the film does not force itself upon the audience,
and instead asks them to absorb what's presented to
them. The highest-grossing film in Hong Kong for 2006
was Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - the very
definition of a force-fed cinema experience - so
most Hong Kong people probably skipped or would choose
to skip After This Our Exile. Too bad; they're
missing a great movie.
If After This Our Exile
has any faults, it may be that the screenplay
is perhaps too focused on its themes, and less on
the sort of reality that would bring it greater credibility.
The film delivers tremendous amounts of character
and emotion, but the message here is not given to
cinematic romanticism. After putting the audience
through a dark emotional experience, the film regroups
for a bittersweet finish - a move that works narratively,
but almost seems disingenuous considering all that
came before. Some characters lose credibility as the
film progresses, some are introduced and then dropped,
while others experience change that isn't fully explained
by the passage of time. Too much seems omitted , which feels like an extra debit since
the film uses repetition to reinforce its themes.
The result is surprising and worthwhile, though not
really beyond expectation, ultimately bringing the
film in beneath classic status. Despite the screenplay's
patience and insight, the situations and characters
don't entirely measure up to the film's direction
and production.
That said, the direction
and production shore things up tremendously; obvious
attention has been paid to even the smallest details,
with high marks given to Mark Lee's golden cinematography
and the gorgeously mundane Malaysia setting. Patrick
Tam shows an amazing control over his material, taking
a rather simple script and concept and spinning cinematic
gold. Tam gives the film class and power; his work
here easily stands among the more impressive this
year from a Hong Kong filmmaker . It's hard to believe that Tam couldn't secure
a directing nomination at the Golden Horse Awards.
After This Our Exile won Best Picture, Best
Actor, and Best Supporting Actor ,
and Tam didn't even get nominated for Best Director!
The Golden Horse Awards have been rather suspect with
some of their choices in recent years ; you can chalk
up Tam's snub as another unfathomable decision made
by whoever is running the show at the Golden Horses.
At least their choice for this year's Best Picture
has some merit.