海角七號 Cape No 7

When I first heard 海角七號 (Cape No 7) uttered—which is a month ago when I was in Taiwan and at a family reunion—it instantly became an unforgettable movie name to me, because everyone within earshot lit up and then lectured me about how successful it was (the movie, not the earshot, though I guess the earshot was also successful given the reaction). My parents, aunts, uncles and cousins, in the rare moment when both the young and the old agreed, dropped trivia about how it’s second to Titanic as the highest-grossing movies in Taiwan’s cinematic history, and how it will be remembered for the next 20 years, and how I could be so stupid for not having heard let alone seen it. I called foul, coz I’m not stupid! I just hadn’t been catching up to Taiwan’s pop culture, and clearly I had to do my assignment by watching Cape No 7. Thank you, condescending relatives!

So last Sunday I took my first step to the path of “getting my haughty relatives to stop calling me a banana (derogatory term for Asians who are overly ‘Westernized’)” by watching that numerical Taiwanese movie that they can’t stop gushing about. The first thing I thought about was probably irrelevant to the movie itself: why are so many movies numbered 7? There’s Magnificent 7, there’s 7 Samurai, there’s Seven, there’s 7 Years in Tibet, there’s Nana (o yay, I’m now the wannabe-nihonjin), there’s Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, and now there’s Cape No 7. Where’s all the love for 6 or 9? Why can’t it be Cape Number Sixty-Ni… nevermind.

The movie begins with the scene of a Japanese ship leaving Taiwan. An unnamed Japanese teacher narrates his love to Kojima Tomoko (a local girl whom he met when he was in Taiwan) and his regret for leaving her because the Japanese occupation is ending. It comes complete with a soft piano background music that will get the New-Age loving crowd to pause the DVD so that they can Google-search Cape No. 7’s OST and download it illegally. Fast forward—or resume button, as would be the case of the aforementioned New-Age hippies (probably the least cool kind of hippie)—50 years later to the present, and we see Aga, a frustrated rocker, cussing, getting gonzo with his guitar, and then riding his motorcycle from Taipei back to his hometown Hengchun, which takes 6-8 hours in real life, but since we’re not watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas we don’t see road trips (and drug trips). Born to be Wild doesn’t play here; instead it’s a song with clumsy English that Aga sang in his unsuccessful gigs.

I keep talking about music because music takes a big role in the movie, as you’ll read about later on.

We go to Hengchun province and here we are introduced to the movie’s quirky characters. I want to be done with the enumeration, so I’ll be quick in describing them. (Not Kojima) Tomoko is a Chinese-speaking Japanese model whose current gig is to guide obnoxious tourists. Uncle Mao is an “elite” postman who’s too old for his job, so the jobless Aga got manhandled by his stepfather, who’s also the town representative, to take over the posting duties. Rauma is a short-tempered police who beats people up but is still nice compared to the police from the country just to his south (i.e. Philippines). Frog is a mechanic who has a crush on his boss’s wife and you’ll often see her cleavage, but I’m not posting the pics here, and you can’t make me! Malasun is the prototypical ingratiating door-to-door rice wine salesman. And Dada is a 10-year-old pianist who gets kicked out of the church because priest says her playing is too hardcore! (Dada is the Chinese for Big Big. Aspiring rappers may want to steal that name because it’s hood-to-the-core, yo! Who knows, maybe you’ll even make it big in Taipei. I can just hear it, “NOTORIOUS DADA RIPRIZANT!!!”Just remember to pay me royalties: I suggested the idea in case you’re forgetting.)

Anyway, soon, Tomoko’s agent tasks her to organize a concert in Hengchun for a Japanese band, but since the town rep wants to give the Japanese band an unforgettable presentation from his own homeland, he forces her to assemble a local band to perform the opening act. She gets Aga, Uncle Mao, Rauma, Malasun and Dada together, and since they are of different backgrounds and have contrasting personalities and musical skills and tastes in music, they drive her nuts.

In the middle of everything, Aga sucks at being a postman. He doesn’t deliver the letters, but dumps them on a box in his room. There is one package that needs to be returned to the sender because it’s addressed to a place that does not exist, but he opens the package anyway and reads the contents – which are seven unsent love letters the Japanese teacher wrote to Kojima Tomoko.

The story is not what you’d call “high-concept” and it won’t appear on avant-garde sci-fi compendium. It’s also not the acid trips that are Wong Kar Wai’s (thankfully that also means no Zhang Ziyi, who’s become a one-trick horny pony). Instead, it’s a straightforward love-story-slash-musical, and anyone who has seen movies from either genre can predict its outcome. How much you’ll enjoy the movie really depends on how much you can care for the characters, and I’m rather disappointed that this movie is only strong in characters and not in plot.

The seven unsent letters I mentioned way back drives Aga—hey, guess how he’ll feel about the present Tomoko—but they do little more than be the MacGuffin. They do sporadically lead to scenes of the teacher narrating his undeclared love to the past Tomoko, but these scenes are not poignant. They’re clunky and melodramatic, and they take you away from the downer-to-earth present, of which they have little to no connection or significance. I can forgive the plot being predictable, but I can’t ignore its weak and distracting transitions from past to present.

Using that phrase “down to earth” again. I think much of the movie’s success comes from how real the characters are, although that quality may be lost to the Western viewers. Its greatest accomplish is the empathy it has for the lifestyle of the sleepy-towns in Taiwan countryside; no wonder that it resonated with millions of Taiwanese viewers. As someone who’s lived in Taiwan’s provinces, I can imagine bumping into any of its characters in real life. In short, I really liked them…

Or most of them anyway. Alas, I hated Aga. He treats Tomoko, his stepfather, and everyone in his band like crap even when they’re trying to help him. Nobody is spared from his hostility cracks. He doesn’t even bother doing the work he’s paid to do. He’s just another in the long line of jerk male protagonist that Taiwan shows are getting since the 90s. I think a longer discourse needs to be written about this subject, but the short is this: why are Taiwanese so fond of the emotionally-charged, antisocial, self-absorbed, effeminate, menial-labor-hating, Strawberry generation asshat who smears angst on everyone he meets by disrespecting his elders and hysterically spitting-and-shouting to the girl he “secretly” harbors feelings for? Wow that’s a long sentence. First there’s Dao Ming Si in Meteor Garden, and now Aga, plus a whole bunch of copy-pasted Taiwan “love” dramas and movies that are aimed for brain-dead youths (that I had to be tortured with since even Philippines’ TV stations are force-feeding me with these shows). I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hang out with this kind of clown in real life, and yet there are these shows where he’s the hero who gets all the girls? And we’re supposed to sympathize? Hello, he may become a wife-beater! Are you Taiwanese women masochists and do you seriously fall for this kind of guy? Is my not being one the bloody reason that I’m still single? I don’t think it’s my looks, because I think I’m rather good looking, you know. I don’t get it. But I digress so that I can comment just one last thing about Aga: his abrupt transformation from a jerk to an okay guy is unconvincing. I’m not buying it.

Music is really a very subjective thing, so it’s hard to suggest that my opinion of it is the gospel truth (as should be the case!). But anyway, this movie has a band in it, so music plays a central role in it. Near the movie’s end, the casts play a few songs. I find all of them disappointing. In the same way as how I’m sick of Taiwan shows’ male protagonist, I’m tired of Taiwan (mostly Mandarin ones) pop music because they always follow the same format: one upbeat rock or dance number, and then one middle-of-the-road ballad. Most of the casts here are unknown actors, so you can consider this movie indie. Yet, for something indie, the songs sure are trite.

At this point, it’s fair to say that I’m ambivalent about Cape No 7. I recognize what made it tick and why it was met with resounding success. I’m glad I watched it and its memorable characters. But, if you ask me if it’s the best movie of all time, or just simply the best Chinese movie I’ve seen, I will tell you that I never claim a movie with a protagonist I want to punch in the face my favorite. Make him someone I want to get behind, and perhaps I’ll be more favorable.