Last Letter (Ni hao Zhihua, 2018)

The great Zhou Xun on the sleeve

Hong Kong Edko Films DVD edition

Zhang Zifeng and Deng Enxi on the Meny pic




Maybe a bit too melodramatic and mainstream tasting Shunji Iwai film to suit me, but OK with great acting from the cast, and then especially
perhaps from the lovely Zhou Xun and Zhang Zifeng. Strangely enough this film made me think of the 2016 Chinese film Soul Mate by Derek
Tsang based on the writings of Annie Baby - Qinshan with the flashback to school years and a triangle drama, just like in this film but with
older actors. So this film, Last Letter, feels like a mix of "Soul Mate (Qi yue yu an sheng)" and Iwai's early 1990's Hit "Love Letter".

The film starts with the funeral of Yuan Zhinan and her sister Yuan Zhihua (Zhou Xun) finds a letter and an invitation to a school reunion.
Zhihua goes to the school reunion, Class of 88, and everyone there thinks she's her older and dead sister Zhinan.
Yin Chuan (Qin Ho) a writer asks her if she has read his novel and if she remembers him. She doesn't tell him that she's not Zhinan, and after
changing phone numbers they part. Immediately after he texts her "If i say i've never stopped loving you, will you believe me?"

Zhou Xun

Zhihua, who's married to a jealous husband, starts writing letters to Yin Chuan telling him about everything that happens to, and around, her.
Then we have the flashbacks to the 1980's with young Zhihua played by Zhang Zifeng, Zhinan by Deng Enxi and Yin Chuan by Bian Tianyang
and with Zhihua used to that everyone's falling in love with her beautiful older sister, including the young Yin Chuan.
The young and plain Zhihua was in love with Yin Chuan, without him noticing it.
But, Zhinan was in love with and married a Bad guy, who left her and she committed suicide. Yin Chuan wrote his first novel titled Zhinan

A bit too sugary maybe, not as stringently directed as usual, but still an OK melodrama about sad love and lost opportunities. Like Life, the
one you love loves someone else, why didn't i call her, talk to her? Is it too late now, maybe .... NO, loser, that was 30 years ago, forget it.

This Hong Kong DVD presents the film in anamorphic widescreen with a mandarin audio 5.1 DTS-ES or 5.1 DD with english subtitles
Extra: Theatrical trailer, Making Of featurette 6 minutes without subtitles and a photo gallery

 

Back to Japan Film Page 1