Hui isn\u2019t unknown in the U.S. One of the leading lights in Hong Kong\u2019s New Wave of the late \u201870s and early \u201880s, her best-known film is Boat People<\/em>, which received a wide arthouse release in 1982 and was released by Criterion on Blu-Ray. (It\u2019s now streaming on the Criterion Channel, alongside Keep Rolling<\/em>, a documentary about the director.) While Hui\u2019s work hasn\u2019t received steady distribution overseas, it continues to get attention. In 2012, Roger Ebert placed A Simple Life <\/em>on his final year-end top 10 list. The continued interest in Hui led to this revival of July Rhapsody<\/em>, but the majority of her 48 films remain unavailable. She never specialized in action movies, so Hollywood remained uninterested when it scooped up many of the city\u2019s major directors in the \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As major pop stars, both Mui and Cheung were cast against type as a quiet, self-deprecating teacher and a homemaker. When he says \u201cI\u2019m not handsome,\u201d it\u2019s hard to believe he actually thinks so; despite graying sideburns, he looks younger than his age. Nonetheless, his turn as the teacher is believable. The story\u2019s tension is related to class; without exactly resenting them, Lam\u2019s acutely aware that some of his students, including Choy-Lam, come from wealthier families. Out drinking with former friends who\u2019ve turned to the business world, he becomes an antsy fly on the wall as they get increasingly buzzed. A roving camera reflects his jittery mood and feeling of unease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n July Rhapsody<\/em> starts with Lam talking with his son (Eric Kot) on the beach. (He\u2019s not the biological father.) Pointedly, the two discuss the fact that the young man is about to graduate university. Ho\u2019s script looks back to the past to explain Lam and his wife\u2019s unhappiness, with flashbacks to their own days as college students. He gazed at her ponytail in class, leading to a more lasting connection. In the present, Choy-Lam nurses a crush on Lam, drawing pictures of him while he lectures. When she meets him in his office, she makes sure to stand up, using her body flirtatiously. (The scene is mostly shot in close-ups.) The two grow closer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In its second half, July Rhapsody <\/em>deepens its narrative by circling back to the roots of Lam and his wife\u2019s relationship and the circumstances of their son\u2019s birth, although it would be a spoiler to say anything further. However, he steps further into this unhappy marriage by dating Choy-Lam, rather than escaping from it. The film is a web of connections from which Lam can\u2019t escape, with a female perspective fully established in the final third. Its editing poetically resurrects fleeting moments from the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n July Rhapsody<\/em> sports a muted palette, where orange clashes with blue. (Choy-Lam draws a flower alternating both colors in one of her adoring drawings of Lam.) Despite the excitement of new love, these colors reflect low-key depression, with bright shades popping out. Lam is associated visually with drab domesticity, while Choy-Lam goes to the mall to buy pink crop-tops and scarf down sugary drinks. He sees himself as a guardian of classic Chinese culture. One of Hong Kong\u2019s biggest stars (with roles in landmark films like Rouge<\/em>, The Heroic Trio<\/em> and Drunken Master II<\/em>),\u00a0Mui would die of cancer the year after July Rhapsody<\/em>\u2019s release, only 40, and this was her final film released during her lifetime. She pulls off the difficult task of playing a character who initially seems cast aside by the story, only to slowly reveal her importance to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ivy Ho also wrote the script for one of Hong Kong\u2019s greatest films, Peter Chan\u2019s Comrades, Almost A Love Story<\/em>. The dream of escape that motivates that film\u2019s characters,\u00a0 who drift from mainland China to Hong Kong to New York, is repressed here, manifesting a deep connection to China instead. The Yangtze river plays an important role in July Rhapsody<\/em>, including its final images. It\u2019s a film about people trapped in destructive patterns set in their youth, harming others by continuing them. By the end, they\u2019re deepened their loneliness rather than finding new love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “July Rhapsody” is out Friday, in a new 4K restoration, in New York and San Francisco. It expands to Los Angeles on July 26.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/july2-1024x539.jpg\")
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