Another teen died this week … on screen. K had leukemia. He didn’t say anything about it … not even to the girl he lives with. Well, there’s an awkward note, huh? “Honey, I’m going out for a bit. Don’t wait up. Dinner’s on you.”
Truth be told, K (Jasper Liu) probably wasn’t a teen when he died, but considering he was diagnosed as a child and subsequently abandoned by his only remaining parent, I think we can call this another delve into teen tragedy, no? “Subsequently” isn’t quite right … “consequently” is. You see, mom already had to deal with dad’s premature cancer battle; no way was she gonna do that again. Ain’t that a bitch? Ain’t she a … nope, not gonna go there; I understand that on some level.
Oh, if there were only one teen tragedy in this film … Cream (Ivy Yi-Han Chen). Hold up a sec. No, their real names are not “K” and “Cream,” of course, that’s what you name children when you’re eating breakfast and you’ve run out of imagination. As a teen, Cream loses her parents to a car accident. The two orphans sense kindred souls and eventually K invites Cream to move in with him at which point Cream renames both of them, just cuz.
What should have been a torrid love story pushed instead into G-rated familyhood; knowing he’s got an expiration date preceding the milk in the fridge, K plays down their obvious attraction and desperate need for intimacy offering instead security and companionship. Pfft. That bum. You know, pal, even if you aren’t married, I’m pretty sure she’s gonna miss you, anyway … K?
So lacking for ways to fill the time until K kicks it, the two find rewarding careers in the not-vacuous-at-all profession of music production. Here’s where the movie adds a shrill, cotton-candy haired, not-vacuous-at-all diva BFF for Cream named Bonnie. Bonnie yells at people for a living and meows in her spare time. The good news is that while as of a month ago, I didn’t know what K-pop was, thanks to movies now I feel like an expert.
You know you’re going to cry. That’s a given. It’s a love story between two young people refusing to be in love and the selfless one is dying of leukemia. I’m not going to excuse the handful of poor choices More Than Blue made – like giving Cream a BFF who’s a vapid, narcissistic, cat woman. Nor am I going to excuse a screenplay for naming a heroine “Cream.” The story, however, was very moving, and both leads played better than the awful Filipino romances I’ve been afflicted with of late. Not sure that’s a ringing endorsement, but there are far worse films to weep through.
When searching for their own private dancer
Some look to the stars for an answer
Be it Virgo or Sagittarius
These sublime connections various
Might I suggest that you avoid the Cancer
Not Rated, 105 Minutes
Director: Gavin Lin
Writer: Gavin Lin, Hermes Lu
Genre: More dyin’ teens
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Misunderstood dying teens
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Immortals
