Perhaps, this film is not up to the level of the temple, but the performance of the two protagonists is worthy of the palace level of Hong Kong films.
It is generally believed that Maggie Cheung's entry into the peak of her performance began with wong Kar-wai's collaboration with Wong Kar-wai on "Carmen in Mong Kok" in 1988. But I think that what really made Maggie Cheung's performance form a personal style was "People in New York" with Guan Jinpeng in the same year. And this "People in New York" is the real beginning of Maggie Cheung's performance style, two years later, "The Season of Love in Other Villages", and then to 1996's "Sweet Honey", contributing to the best performance of her career.
These three films, for Maggie Cheung, have a common core and are in the same vein. In the three films, Maggie Cheung plays the role of an ordinary woman in a foreign land. Among them, the spiritual commonality is a sense of loneliness and alienation. And this emotional feature (single refers to performance), other actresses, whether it is Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, or Lin Qingxia, Wang Zuxian, in the Chinese film circle, Maggie Zhang is unique. And this is the biggest reason why Maggie Cheung can become a representative of actresses in the Chinese film circle.
Of course, these three films, Maggie Cheung's performance is from youth to maturity, starting from "Mong Kok Carmen", Maggie Cheung appreciated the performance method of inner drama, and then formed this performance style with "People in New York", and then precipitated this performance style in "Season of Love in Other Villages", and in the next few years, through "Ruan Lingyu", "Ah Fei Zheng Biography", etc., constantly honed, and finally to "Sweet Honey", contributing the greatest works, after this, in addition to "Fancy Years", there is no transcendence, Even close to the show too.
Specific to this film "The Season of Love in Other Villages", if it is only taken out, of course, it is enough to call it an excellent performance, and it can even be said to be a temple level, but there is no harm without comparison, especially for the actor's own other works. If Maggie Cheung's acting career is divided into two paragraphs before and after this film, the first paragraph is garbage compared to this film, even if it is "Carmen in Mong Kok" and "People in New York" are not qualified in comparison, but compared with the subsequent works such as "Ruan Lingyu", "Sweet Honey", "Fancy Years" and so on, the performance of this work is a bit overheated and immature.
In this film, because of the narrative of the film, Maggie Cheung's performance paragraphs are incomplete, more fragmented, and the characteristics and changes of the characters are shown through the memories or sides of others, which is both a challenge and a clumsiness for the actors.
The challenge is that the change of characters requires the actors to constantly think about themselves, and according to the different periods presented in the timeline of the film, the performance details must be changed in order to meet the requirements of change.
Hidden clumsiness can be understood as a fragmented performance, which can directly reflect the change of characters in the film, and the visual effect of this change is obvious enough and there is enough gap.
Maggie Cheung in this "Season of Love in Other Villages", both of which are well done, but compared with works such as "Sweet Honey" and "Ruan Lingyu", it is not enough to hide clumsiness, it has not reached her personal best level, and in popular language, it is not introverted enough in some details.
And Leung Ka Fai, I personally think that this film is the highest embodiment of his acting skills.
Compared with Maggie Cheung, Leung Ka Fai's performance style, in addition to being changeable, has no unified conclusion. But according to his career as an actor, he can also roughly draw a line.
In addition to the previous works of his career, Leung Ka-fai's appearance in the film "Cher" since 1984 can be regarded as the beginning of his first performance style. This work is one of the representative works of New Wave director Tan Jiaming. Since the beginning of this work, Leung Ka Fai began to form the performance image of honest people in his own culture, and his own performance style is closer to realism and has its unique literary and artistic style. Like the later "Prison Storm", "The Season of Love in Other Villages", "He Rijun's Return", "Lover" are all in this style.
1992's "New Dragon Gate Inn" was the beginning of another performance style of Leung Ka Fai. Since the beginning of this film, to the later "The True Colors of the Heroes of water margin" and "East Evil and West Poison", the martial arts characters played by Liang Jiahui have their own elegant, dashing, and charming temperament.
In the same year, "92 Black Roses to Black Roses" was the starting point of another vein of Leung Ka Fai's comedy performance. Since then, he has participated in many comedies, such as "Chasing Boys", "Nerve Knife and Flying Cat", "East into West", "God of Gamblers 2" and so on.
The last thing to see is the gangster movie. 1997's "Black Gold", 2000's "Jianghu Emergency", 2005's "Underworld", and even the later "Cold War", although not a gangster film, is also the same gangster style.
These different performance styles cannot be summarized at all, and even in these several styles, excellent works can be found, and their performances are not superior.
In response to the "Season of Love in Other Villages" mentioned in this article, it is obvious that it can be classified as the performance style of Leung Ka Fai's literary and artistic genre. In this vein, it can be compared with films such as "Lover" and "When the Sun Comes Again" to taste in detail.
Compared with the graceful rich man in "Lover" and the underground dangang in "He Rijun Again", in "The Season of Love in Other Villages", the image shown by Leung Ka Fai is close to erasing all the temperament of the actor, infinitely similar to the ordinary characters of reality.
Because of the film's lens language, the actor cannot achieve a similar and documentary concept, unless it is completely abandoned the film lens language, just like the interrogation of the criminal at the end of the film by "Burning Heart", completely abandoning the film's camera angle and narrative method, so that it may be able to achieve the same feeling as a documentary.
But in this film, Leung Ka Fai has no sense of an actor at all, as if he is a character in reality, such as crouching in the corner opposite the consulate with a child in his arms at the beginning, such as leading a child through the streets of the 80s, and this kind of performance is unparalleled in the Chinese film circle.
If you talk about this film alone, Leung Ka Fai's performance is undoubtedly higher than that of Maggie Cheung. And this height, in addition to the performance style, is more reflected in the subtleties of character changes.
When Liang Jiahui smuggled from Mexico to the United States, in the process of finding his wife, every time he met a person, after hearing a story about his wife, his emotional heaviness was gradually deepened, and this emotional burden was also shown by Liang Jiahui little by little, from the very beginning, the uneasiness of losing his wife's information, to the confusion after living on the street, and then because of the guilt of seeing his wife's difficult living conditions for his wife, and hearing the pain of his wife after seemingly bigamy, Then to the personal sinking after the complete loss of news, the release of emotions that aggravate little by little, until the outbreak after drunkenness, this outbreak is also completely undisclosed, in line with the depressive feeling of the whole film.
And this emotional change process, to the end of the film, is all condensed into a fragment, that is, the emotional change after the reunion with his wife.
This clip is perhaps the best representation of Hong Kong cinema in terms of performance.
After getting the tip, he became cheerful because of the money, and happily hummed a little tune downstairs; in the process of going downstairs, he found the figure of his wife, and the pace began to slow down until he finally stopped; his expression, from the very beginning to doubt whether he was wrong, then slowly turned his head, and then consternation, and then after seeing his wife, as if remembering something, turned his head back, the breath became urgent, the facial muscles began to stiffen, the emotions began to be angry, and then he breathed heavily, and closed his eyes as if he wanted to make up his mind. Then when Maggie Cheung pounced on him and met him, he seemed to be frightened.
In the whole process, it can be clearly seen that Leung Ka Fai's chain about this performance, the chain of action, that is, feeling, judging, and acting.
Feeling: When I first went downstairs, I felt that my wife was also in the corridor. Judgment: After feeling it, he slows down, he judges himself to deny that he is wrong; action: he confirms it and stops and begins a psychological struggle.
If you change to other performances, you may lack one of the links, or a certain link cannot be done at all.
If it is an idol drama performance, the first step may not be felt. The common idol drama routine is to directly turn the head, bump into each other, male and female tears, and there is no process of feeling.
A slightly better performance, that is, after feeling, directly stop and do not go, there is no process of slowing down the pace, lack of judgment.
The better level is to continue to judge after feeling, but the action is extreme, directly turn around, and open your eyes.
(You can recall the movies or TV series you have watched to see if this is such a logic)
And this performance, it perfectly conforms to the previous plot development, looking at the details from the overall situation, and returning to the whole from the details. In this regard, I think that this clip alone is one of the best in the world's film performances.
In summary, for Maggie Cheung's performance, she won the Special Jury Prize at the Turin International Film Festival in Italy, while Leung Ka Fai's performance won the Best Actor Award at the Golden Horse Awards of Taiwan Film. The reason why it did not win at the Academy Awards, the film only received 9 nominations, on the one hand, the "A Fei Zheng Biography" in the same year was too classic, on the other hand, perhaps the Hong Kong temperament of this film was not strong enough, and it was slightly metaphorical and political.