Film Name: 男人四十 / July Rhapsody
Hu Cailan gazed at her teacher, her eyes brimming with emotion as if they might spill over. She gently bit her lip, then suddenly broke into a smile. Even with hidden motives and troubled thoughts, the innocence in her youthful face remained undimmed. Karina Lam was perfectly suited for this kind of role—innocent yet sensual, untamed yet alluring.
When Jacky Cheung appeared, holding a book in his hands, I stared intently and recognized it as The Fifteenth Year of Wanli. I nearly jumped for joy. It’s rare to see such a book in Hong Kong films. This was my first time seeing Jacky Cheung play such a restrained role—not a gangster, not a drug addict, not a comic relief, but a proper, refined, reserved middle-aged man with flecks of gray at his temples. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. Yet he delivered an excellent performance, especially in embodying the image of a devoted father.
Jacky plays Lam Yiu-kwok, a secondary school Chinese teacher. At forty, while his former classmates have all risen to prominence, he remains just an ordinary educator. He’s a good teacher, a good father, a good husband—his character embodies the traditional scholar, stubbornly principled to the point of obstinacy.
The girl he once secretly loved, Chen Wenqian, is now his wife. Anita Mui’s performance in the film is solid, but her slender, tense frame makes her silhouette appear remarkably defiant. She has tucked away all her fierceness, her hair casually pinned up like any ordinary housewife, stray strands falling across her face as she concentrates on ironing clothes and cooking meals. A stable family. The story is that simple. School starts, school ends, after school, going home. Only on campus, the fiercely blooming flamboyant trees occasionally flicker by—shadowy greens, puffs of red.
If nothing had disrupted the original balance. Chen Wenqian had to care for her beloved middle school Chinese teacher, now a frail elderly man in his twilight years. Lin Yaoguo refused to discuss the matter. Outwardly calm, inwardly she finally found an outlet.
Why not? Why couldn’t it be? The movie poster captured this scene—in the theater, Jacky Cheung’s hand, placed awkwardly beside Karen Lam’s thigh in her school uniform, was truly exquisite. What could rival the invincible force of youth? What could stand against one’s own excuses and self-forgiveness? In truth, the scales had tipped long ago. Lin Yaoguo must have harbored regrets deep down, though he never voiced them. Had he not married so young, had he not shouldered family responsibilities so early, might his life have unfolded differently?
Hu Cailan’s increasingly brazen flirtations arguably fed Lin Yaoguo’s ego. Her youth was everything—her bold, unrestrained laughter, her direct words, her knowing when to advance and retreat—it was all perfect. Yet these very qualities became Lin Yaoguo’s excuses and justifications. He needed to prove himself and indulge his desires. Hu Cailan simply arrived at the perfect moment.
Of course, he remained a good father, a good husband, a good teacher—still the man bearing the weight of his entire family. At the film’s end, his wife quietly broached divorce. Yet he embraced her, embraced the girl he’d once secretly loved, and proposed a trip to the Three Gorges—that place steeped in Tang and Song poetry for millennia, celebrated by literati and scholars.
Such an ending feels utterly despairing. Ann Hui refuses to resolve these entanglements of love and resentment with a clean cut. Life must still be lived in this hazy way—a little joy, a little boredom, a little struggle, a little sorrow.
When we are young, we always hope for clear-cut black and white, for straightforward integrity. Yet this world keeps telling us that between black and white lies a spectrum of deep and light grays.
Please specify：Anime Phone Cases » July Rhapsody 2002 Film Review: Black, white, and gray