4:30

I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival. This is the second feature length film from noted short film director and writer Roystan Tan and I think this may have worked better as a short film rather than being dragged out into a 90 minute film. Very little dialog here. It's a story about an 11 year old cough medicine abusing-latch key boy named Xiao Wu whose mother is on business in Bejing and he's left alone in the apartment with a suicidal tenant from Korea named Jung who is drinking and popping pills. The long stretched out scenes are about exciting as watching paint dry. Xiao Wu keeps a journal about Jung and sneaks into his room and spies on him every morning at 4:30. As a 25 minute short this may have peaked my interest and tied everything in more neatly and concisely and left me wanting for more but as a 90 minute feature it left me wanting to abuse cough syrup or kill myself. I'll be kind and give this a 4.5 out of 10.

Audiences aware of Royston Tan's works, will almost always recall his controversial shorts like 15 and Cut. Full of colour and packed with fascinating visuals, his short films have so far been anything but a silent movie, and everything like song, dance and music, have found their way as a signature.

All these bells and whistles take a backseat in 4:30, a quiet film save for some lines of dialogue. The closing film of this year's Singapore International Film Festival where it played to a sell out crowd, the first thing that comes to mind is, is this a Singapore movie? With a style so commonly found in art-house films, you'll probably be amazed that we do have someone here capable of crafting a contemplative movie immersed so richly in green hues. A previous short film closest to the mood and visuals to 4:30 would be Sons (you must check it out!)

In the still of the night which is 4:30 am, a little boy Xiao Wu, wakes up almost religiously each day to spy on a Korean tenant of his family apartment. A latch key, lonely boy, he finds joy in crafting a virtual relationship with the man Jung, a foreigner with an agenda here, a friend he cannot communicate directly with given barriers like language and his non presence during the day.

But of course that's just one, obvious layer of the movie. With clues and markers peppered throughout the movie, you'd be compelled to wonder if what is unveiled on screen, can be taken as a matter of fact. There is obviously no regular school in December, the boy's abuse of cough mixture a worrying phenomenon but one which suggests something of a dreamlike bizarreness, and a tinge of homo-erotic sentiments. These markers will tickle your mind as you try and sieve figments of imagination, from screen reality. The many silent moments give your mind plenty of workout time, sometimes into overdrive.

There are plenty of Royston touches to this beautifully shot film, like his preference for all things old - like the Telecoms push button telephone (in green no less), the cloth wardrobe, and the facade of the Look Clinic. The main lead Xiao Li Yuan who plays Xiao Wu, is effectively bilingual, and quite believable in his role as the lonely kid yearning for some serious attention which he is not getting from his parents, lending to his frequent disruption of a neighbourhood tai-chi session, to his fixation and stalker-like behaviour towards Jung.

Whatever your interpretation of the events that transpire, ultimately, it's quite a sad movie, of unrequited "love" and friendship, about the road of loneliness. It's an engaging character piece, and of the ties that bind.

p.s. 4:30 is now showing in 3 theatres, with limited schedules. If you really want to check out how different this movie is from his previous (short) works, or if you dig Kim Ki-duk's stuff, then waste no time ya? The afternoon weekend screening I went to, only had 5 folks including myself. Once you're done with Supes, give the lonely kid some love :-)

Royston Tan's second feature 4:30 is a study of loneliness and inability to break what is often just a shell created by circumstance and mounting bitterness towards fellow human beings as well as failure to communicate. The film's central characters are Xiao Wu, an 11-year-old Chinese latchkey boy left to fend for himself after school while his mother is away on never-ending business trips and Jung, their thirty-something suicidal wreck of a tenant from Korea. The obvious obstacles to any communication between the two, such as the language barrier and the age gap, do not deter the boy from constantly attempting to establish a link to Jung. Just like a warmth-seeking missile, he never seizes to direct his attention towards him – he smells his chopsticks to find out what he had for dinner, he takes a photo of both of them together while Jung is asleep and even secretly cuts one of his pubic hairs – all to be entered into his journal which is entirely dedicated to documenting Xiao Wu's observations of the tenant. Occasionally, he tries to get under Jung's skin by putting on his boxer shorts and mimicking his daily routines, including shaving. Thus, his obsession with Jung becomes his own daily routine, a routine which he takes very seriously. Every night at 4.30, woken up by his several alarm clocks, he conducts his nocturnal forays into Jung's bedroom. While the tenant is lying unconscious in his bed after yet another night of heavy drinking, no doubt aided by the pills which he also abuses, Xiao Wu inspects what little there is to inspect, searching for future entries into his journal.

Jung seems oblivious to Xiao Wu's childish attempts at communicating with him. His own mind is grief-stricken by the loss of his girlfriend and he chooses to ignore even the boy's unimpeded attempts at provoking a reaction from him. In a rare moment of actual interaction between the two one night on the stairs, the only thing Jung can think of is to offer the 11-year-old a cigarette while tears are welling up in his eyes. He even tries to say something to Xiao Wu in Korean, only the viewer doesn't get any translation of what he says, just to emphasise the impenetrable wall between the two.

Leading a lonely existence in an adolescent world disconnected from the rest of the society, Xiao Wu is a typical product of surroundings which have little time to spare for one another. Growing up mostly on his own and feeling alienated in school, his only role models are fictional characters on TV shows whom he knows so well that he simply mimics every word one of them, ironically a disgruntled housewife, has to say. Unwittingly, Jung becomes his other role model being the only other person around. One of the focal scenes of the film has Xiao Wu reading out loud a composition he was supposed to write as part of his homework. The title of the composition is My Hero. In a somewhat shaky voice he presents Jung as his Korean father who has a distinct smell of beer and Johnson's baby powder but also someone who loves him and cares for him and meets him every day after school. And herein lies the all too powerful distinction between the two – although they are both intrinsically lonely, their loneliness has been arrived at on two different levels which are never to meet. Most of the time, the two protagonists wear white shirts and tops. While in the boy's case the white colour might symbolise his innocence, Jung's white shirts resemble mostly a white flag. Xiao Wu is seeking human contact while Jung has given up on it.

Royston Tan's art direction is impressive and his cinematography has a hypnotic, almost mesmerising effect. Although obviously not to everyone's taste, 4:30 can be a rather meditating experience with sparse dialogue and long silent scenes where the viewer is given the opportunity to submerge in the significance of the seemingly insignificant. The film is also filled with subtle humour portraying everyday life of an extremely bored pre-adolescent boy. It cannot be recommended to any viewers craving action or wrapped-up explanations since much of the interpretation is left to ourselves but I would say that it's exactly what gives this film a little extra to chew on after the credits are gone.

andysfilmworld.blogspot.com

4:30 is an unexpectedly calm, beautiful film for its aesthetic that details the unlikely friendship / relationship between Zhang Xiao Wu, an eleven year old Chinese Boy, and his tenant Jung, a thirty-something Korean man. 4:30, as the title suggests is about a moment as the boundaries between fantasy and reality are transparent in this beautiful film and it is certainly an achievement that never gets boring with its static camera.

This is because the storytelling style that this film presents comes from Xiao Wu's perspective, it's is a film that utilizes its imagery so succinctly and so intimately that such imagery is inescapably tied to Zhang Xiao Wu, and his obsession/companion Jung. This is definitely for art films lovers and for the fans of Royston Tan it's a much-watch.