Confession of Pain during my One Last Dance

My weak, feeble attempt at marrying the two movies I caught with V yesterday. Which was all good, given the terrible weather of late. More of the same today. When was the last time anybody saw blue skies in Singapore?

This is not a movie review. There might be spoilers but they will not change your decision on whether or not you should see the two movies. Long entry but read on if you are interested to find out the link between the two movies.

I should actually begin with Rene Liu's recent quote on what she wants in a man:

I hope there is someone who has that strength to come along, catch me and go, who won't want to second-guess me

The quote above is relevant because I read this quote before leaving V's place for the cinema. There is a new show coming up starring Rene and Louis Koo.

What holds two people together? For Tony Leung's character in Confession of Pain, (I really hate this English movie title. The Chinese title, 伤城, is alot more accurate. There is the imagery of a walled-city built to surround the occupant as a result of hurt that caused wounds that are still waiting to be healed. There are nuances that cannot be translated. It is not that the English langauge is inferior or unable to carry such nuances. They are just different.) it is the hate, that had been formed when he witnessed his family being murdered and his home torched by his wife's father and his accomplices, that drives him to be together with his wife. While what drew Francis Ng's character in One Last Dance (no objection to the English title here) to Vivian Hsu was the ability of the latter to allow him to grasp onto the remaining innocence that is slowly but surely being depleted as the story unraveled.

Relationships form for a myriad of reasons.

I found myself thinking about why Takeshi would have bothered to clean the man who was in a coma on a daily basis since this was the same man whom his girlfriend was waiting for on Christmas Eve in a bar? And also why had Tony Leung likened a relationship to a homicide case? That both takes time and patience.

Takeshi had realised, after five years, that he was not suitable for his girlfriend and their relationship was bound for a downward spiral. She committed suicide when the man she was waiting for that night never turned up. She had two days earlier aborted an unborn child she had with that man. Takeshi thought the unborn child was his. The man failed to turn up because he was in a car crash hence his comatose state. So three years on, when Takeshi finally managed to put all these pieces together, why did he first attempt to smother the man who had impregnated his girlfriend then to take care of him?

Maybe he had come to realise, through his whisky intoxicated awareness, that his guilt had been reduced by this man. He had earlier thought he had neglected his girlfriend who committed suicide by slashing her wrists with a penknife. He was further guilt-strickened when he learnt that she had had an abortion before slicing herself. Hence when he found out that this man, lying in a vegetative state, was the father of the unborn child and possibly the main reason why his girlfriend killed herself, he felt relieved. The man in coma had relieved all his guilt and he was thus grateful. Takeshi could finally lay to rest his ghosts.

Is that plausible?

Confession is largely a story about motivation. It is not a crime thriller because the main crime had already been solved. It was meant to be a spoiler per se to let the audience know that Tony Leung killed his wife's father. What the directors had intended for us was to understand deeper not into the actions but the motivations instead. What drove Tony to plot and kill the murderers of his family? What drove Takeshi to lay slump over whisky each night at the same bar his girlfriend had waited on the night she commited suicide. Which is weird because this action/motivation thing marries the two movies very well.

In One Last Dance, Francis Ng mentioned Kant. Immanuel Kant, philosopher, was notable for his role in Categorical Imperative. Immanuel Kant says that moral acts are the consequences of the unconditional application of general principles. There is no regard for the outcome. Only the motivation.

I think I fuck up my brains too much sometimes.