Um, look, I’m gonna say this right off – it’s not easy to make fun of a film about a guy searching for his long-stolen child. But for you, I’m gonna try. Be strong, Jim.
This has actually been quite a crappy month for tongue-in-cheek reviewing. I mean, how is one supposed to undermine properly an incomprehensible Chinese comedy about gigolos (12 Golden Ducks)? Oh, and don’t get me started on Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine – documentary about a poor kid beaten to death for the crime of being homosexual? It’s a good thing I don’t get paid for this; I’d be out of a job.
So here now is the tale of a man who has spent fifteen (15) years searching for the toddler that was taken from him. There really aren’t sarcastic words for that. Best I can do is give some background and maybe describe the plot.
Films like The Transporter have hipped me to the idea that the trafficking of Chinese slaves is a big problem in the Occident; it didn’t occur to me that – if you think it’s big in the West, what do you think it’s like in China? Oh. Is it that bad? Yes, it is. Apparently, children get stolen and sold all the time in China. Evil is hardly limited to that which can be exported. Not only does such abduction destroy the parents, the children aren’t exactly, “well, I don’t remember so, ‘no harm, no foul’.” See, if you got illegally sold to a family as a toddler, you never get proper paperwork – this will limit your ability in the future for many societal benefits like higher education and employment; heck, you can’t even ride a train. Can you imagine going your entire life without ever riding a train?
Lei Zekuan (Andy Lau) is the very essence of the word “bedraggled.” He looked like he’s slept in the clothes he’s wearing for at least a month. He probably has. He rides his scooter all over China in search of his stolen toddler. Of course, Lei has been riding so long that wherever the boy is, he now shaves. Lei’s ancient machine drags a silk screen pennant that resembles the back of a milk carton. Now every time I see a car flying a similar flag advertising a sports team, I will think of the man advertising a lost child. By chance, he finds a flyer of another stolen child. He makes a pennant out of that one, too. His bike needs repair. Probably goes with the territory. When your life is searching, you don’t make a lot of money; Lost and Love is extremely quick to point out the generosity of the sympathetic folks he encounters. An innkeeper sponsors the stranger’s dinner and puts him up for the night; a policeman pulls Lei over because his vehicle is illegal on the highway, but when Lei checks his map at the next rest stop, the officer has left him ¥200. Lei dutifully scribbles every instance of kindness – he intends to pay everybody
back eventually. We don’t believe he will, but the gesture leaves us touched.
In lieu of payment, a teen mechanic, Zeng (Boran Jing), says he was a stolen child himself and wants to join Lei’s quest. All Zeng remembers from his pre-abduction days is a chain bridge, a bamboo field and his mom’s long braid. I’m guessing the United States equivalent is somewhere on the order of a baseball field, a sound wall and a mom with big hair. Imagine searching the entire country for that.
Lost and Love is very moving, yet remains another film that will have trouble finding an audience. The people it will most appeal to will find the subject matter unsettling. If you go to the movies to forget about a lost child, you’re probably not going to want to be entertained by a tale of the lost and helpless, endlessly going about their Sisyphean tasks of putting their lives back together. But if you can both sympathize and distance yourself at the same time, you’ll find Lost and Love both rewarding and damning.
Once the search prolongs
Can one possibly attain
Satisfied outcome?
Not Rated, 108 Minutes
D: Sanyuan Peng
W: Sanyuan Peng
Genre: The journey through Hell
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Broken people, except for the part where they can’t because they’re broken.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Deniers
