Eternal Summer dvd movie.|
Eternal Summer dvd videos, dvd movies reviews |
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List Price: $26.95 Our Price: $23.99 You Save: $2.96 Features • Surround Sound • Color • Subtitled • Widescreen In Theaters : 2006 DVD Release : 06 November, 2007 |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Sweet, beautiful story of unrequitted love, leaves one wanting more. |
| The plot of "Sheng xia guang nian" ("Eternal Summer") (2006) is a common and simple one: a case of unrequitted love, of a shy, studious young man for his more popular, athletic best friend. The difference, in this film from Taiwan, is in the telling, in the hands of a skilled director working with a cast of talented young actors. It essentially forcuses in on the blurred line between "best friends" and "love" between two young men from childhood through their university days.
It is a teacher who first brings them together, with a plan that Jonathan's study habits and obedient nature will rub off on class troublemaker Shane. The two develop a close working relationship, which carries them through their teen years, where it becomes obvious to the camera that Jonathan has a crush on Shane, who is the star of their high school basketball team. As they make the transition to the university, a new girl in school comes between them. First interested attracted to Jonathan, but guessing that he isn't interested in a sexual relationship with any girl, she pursues and begins an affair with Shane, which they keep from Jonathan so as to not "distract" him from his studies. Not surprisingly, the later revelation of their secret drives the two friends apart, despite Shane's perhaps-drunken attentions to Jonathan to smooth things over. Beautifully photographed, well-acted and generally realistic in the character portrayals, I only had two problems with the film. The first, relatively minor, is the music, which I found to be overly dramatic and really not fitting the mood of the scenes. I also didn't like the end of the film, which left unresolved the basic question posed at the end of my first paragraph above. I would have liked to hear the characters open up with their feelings a lot more than they did. Other than that, this is a great film, one of the best gay Asian films I have seen. Film is in Mandarin, with subtitles. Unrated, but likely would be an R for gay content, partial nudity and simulated sexual activity. DVD has director and actors' commentaries, deleted scenes and both the US and Taiwan trailers. I'd rate it four stars out of five. |
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