Wonderful Movie

Sadly Over-hyped

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I saw this movie in early 2009. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It makes me want to see more films like this one. The songs and music are great and also the cinematography. I recorded the ending song and keep it on all my media players. I'd like to know the name of the traditional song sung by some folks in the truck. I rate the movie 7.5 out of ten. Oftentimes it is quite enjoyable to witness cultures not your own and this film is one such treat. This film is for people who enjoy making their own life decisions, so the ending is intentionally not absolute. People who would rather live their lives vicariously will perhaps find the ending dissatisfying.

"Zui Yao Yuan De Ju Li" is a film from Taiwan and I must say it's one of the stranger and least satisfying films I've seen in some time. It's all VERY low-key and perhaps you'll like it--I just felt like it was a bit dull and far from satisfying.This film is about three weird people. The first, and by far the weirdest, is a psychiatrist who likes to pay prostitutes to play unusual sex games with him--nothing especially kinky, just very strange. The second is an odd-ball who travels the length and breadth of the country recording sounds and sending them to a woman--a woman who has since moved and isn't even receiving the tapes. In fact, a stranger (also a lonely person) has been listening to them instead and this weird lady decides to travel throughout the country trying to pinpoint the places where the recordings were made. None of the people are normal, but they all seem rather sad and benign.The problem with the film is that although the folks are somewhat endearing, there is no real resolution to their loneliness and the film doesn't seem to have much of a point. In particular, by the end of the movie the psychiatrist seems bonkers. And, the recording guy and the woman following his sounds MAY meet--but the film never really establishes this. As a result, it's not at all satisfying--just a bit empty.The music and cinematography is nice but otherwise I cannot recommend the movie unless you like dull and rather pointless films. I know this sounds pretty mean, but that's the way I see it.

This is one of those very slow and dreamy ones but the story is interesting enough to stay engaged and Lunmei Kwai (Blue Gate Crossing) is delightful. She receives cassette tapes of nature and community sounds from a guy, a professional sound-recordist, who thinks he is sending them to the girl who broke his heart. He is capturing sounds from all the places he had hoped to visit with her before she broke up with him. He meets up on his travels with a psychiatrist, played wonderfully by Siao-guo Jia, who is also suffering a broken heart and doing some soul searching of his own. Lunmei Kwai sets out to discover and visit all the places the sounds are coming from with the outside hope of maybe meeting the guy who is sending them. Very bittersweet ending that's neither happy nor sad but wide open to possibility.

Lin Jing-Jie's debut feature film is at times uplifting, at times making you want to self-discover yourself, other times you feel deep pity towards the characters and the journeys they are going through. The story revolves around three individuals who have all hit a crossroads in their lives; Xiaotang is a sound recorder for films who has just been fired for running late, Acai is a psychiatrist who is guilty for regretting something in his own past, and Xiaoyun is working an office job and the mistress involved in an affair.All three characters begin on entirely separate roads. Xiaotang is longingly thinking of his ex-girlfriend and decides that he shall go on a trip recording the sounds of Taiwan - a project that the couple had discussed many times before but never got around to doing it. He marks each tape and sends them to the address of his ex-girlfriend, in hopes of curing himself of her and perhaps winning her back.The only problem is Xiaoyun has moved into the apartment and she is receiving the tapes. At first she hesitates to open them, and inquiring with the landlady about the previous apartment dweller, she decides to open them and see what they are. She begins listening to the random sounds that people often hear every day but often is forgotten within the instant; the sound of the wind swaying wildflowers, a train passing by in the deep country, a fish-market opening in the morning and the chaos it can bring about, the aboriginal Taiwanese singing and dancing at night over a campfire. Having had enough of being the mistress involved in an affair where lonely nights are often and there is no such thing as "love", she walks out on the job in search of finding the sounds that she brings with her on her commute to and from work. Perhaps in blind hope of finding the person who is recording these miraculous sounds.Acai (played by the brilliant Jia Siao-guo who has a penetrating gaze and a deep mellow voice) is a psychiatrist with a regretful past hanging over his shoulders. He wakes up one morning and whilst donning his suit and tie, he begins to take them off and puts on more casual clothes, taking a trip to the place of remembrance from his past - a lost love who he considers his soulmate who had gotten away and married. He somehow stumbles upon Xiaotang's trip whilst staying at the same hotel and decides to tag along, also hinting about trying to help Xiaotang's own lost love problems.Eventually everything ties together in an ending that is always excellent to see, and indescribable at the same time, making you want to sit through the credits and have the film sink that much more into your mind. The Most Distant Course is one of those films that makes you feel lost at the start because things are going on in the story as if the viewer was already there, but by the end of it you are wanting to have more. The main premise of the movie is self-discovery, hardships and journeys people go through to find themselves, but at the same time Lin Jing-Jie has really enforced the importance of sound within it. If possible, I highly recommend to watch this movie with a great sound system or high quality headphones.It won't certainly be a movie for everyone; but for those who are at a crossroads in their life, for those who have been through it, or for those who are about to face it.. it is worthwhile to track this down and sit through it. It might make you want to take a trip of your own in a way to connect back to yourself.