Recommended by a friend, I watched this movie "Wait'til you're older." It's Andy Lau's first 2005 appearance on Hong Kong movie screens.
Andy Lau casts as 光仔, the aging version of the main child character. 光仔 wishes to leave the house because he never got along with his step mother and thinking that she and his dad killed his mother who was engadged in an affair with his dad. His mother commited suicide in protest of the affair, thus 光仔 blamed his dad and step mother for her death. Now in order for him to leave the house and be independent, he needs money and be a grown man. Thanks to the sci-fi part of the movie, a rapid growing liquid was invented to make him into a gronw man in one night. However the adult life that he had hoped isn't as easy as he thought.
Originally I thought it was more of coming of the age movie, it turned out the script writer wanted to convey more than that, and unfortunately with so many message that the movie is trying to convince, it became too rapid and too out of focus. During many encounters as an adult, 光仔 came to realize that a lot of time he (as a kid) only saw one side of the situation, and there are more complicated side that adult has to be face with. His finding of his favorite teacher having affair with school's vice superattendant, his dad had to pretend that he forgot about his blooded-related mother in order to be with his real wife, and eventually, the meaning of a family all contributed to his understanding of adulthood. Now ironically, just like his quick understand of what being an adult is, he is also aging so fast that he died becoming too old. And there is another problem where he learned the valuable lesson on how important time is.
The really down side of the movie is the unbalanced story telling at the beginning and rather bold connection wtih each event. However at the end you can tell the director is becoming more focused on something, and that's why I would say stick with the movie till the end, you'll be rewarded. The music on the other hand has really good touchy-feely melody to it, but it was too overdone, and for a while I thought i was watching a Disney movie. Haven't been watching too many HK movie lately because of the inactivity of the whole HK film industry..I'm glad I watched this one, and would recommend to my friends.
Directing: 3/5
Director 陳德森(Teddy Chen) won my heart for many descent shot through out the movie, also how he tells the story. However, very unbalanced.
Script: 4/5
I like the story, and it could be another descent movie if the directing wasn't too out of focused.
Overall: 4/5
4 is acutally too high for this movie, but considering how I haven't seen any good HK movie lately because they kept on making the damn sequels to other good moves, and also good acting of both kid and Andy Lau, i think it deserves higher score.
