Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Huang Xuan, Yang Caiyu, Lydia Peckham, Xu Fan
Intro:
The sheer force of the emotional manipulation on display is so undeniably unassailable, there’s just no option but to submit to its syrupy, sweet sorrow.
To term Only Cloud Knows as a wistful romantic drama, is to seriously underestimate the weapons-grade ‘twist’ contained therein. Directed by Chinese filmmaker Feng Xiaogang, whose predominantly been known for a spray of commercially successful comedies and period films (notably Back to 1942 as well as dramas like the box office blockbuster, Youth), his genre hopping efforts of late have also included romantic melodramas.
His latest New Zealand-set story deploys the slick, ‘forever magic hour’ tone of Nicholas Sparks stories (like The Lucky One or The Notebook)) though its sombre plot is firmly intended to hit audiences right in the ‘feels’. Just like those Sparks stories, Only Cloud Knows creates an aesthetically and emotionally pleasing cocktail of style with an authentic emotional charge that significantly increases the stakes in the longing, love and loss department.
It’s told in flashback, as a widower returns to his former home to scatter the ashes of his wife and reminisces about their lives there. Thus begins the tale of Simon, whose Chinese name is Dongfeng Sui (played by Xuan Huang) and his wife Jennifer, whose real name is Yun Luo (played by Caiyu Yang). The film’s title is from the pun in their names, with Yun meaning ‘cloud’ and DongFeng meaning ‘wind’.
After initially meeting in Auckland as new arrivals in New Zealand, the pair later relocate to an almost incomprehensibly beautiful central Otago south-island property, that is so stunningly green and rolling, it’s reasonable to expect a Hobbit to walk past at any moment.
The pair open a Chinese restaurant in the small town of Clyde, using the nearby snow-capped alps as an epic background to the intimacy the story is trying to engender. The almost storybook tone is obvious and plot events are heavily signposted, yet confoundingly, it’s utterly effective.
Through flashbacks, we’re introduced to Melinda (Lydia Peckham), a local Clyde girl looking to work in their newly opened restaurant who becomes a close friend to the couple; we meet their disgustingly adorable rescue dog Blue and we generally envy the idyllic life they enjoy.
Cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding’s honey-slicked visuals and Dong Gang’s relentlessly heartstring-tugging score are the coup de grâce to a triangulated filmic headshot. The sheer force of the emotional manipulation on display is so undeniably unassailable, there’s just no option but to submit to its syrupy, sweet sorrow and just have a quiet sob in the cinema toilet stall.
