“Secret” is a 2007 Taiwanese film which tells us a dramatic story of love between two young people who are parted by 20 years. This film is an impressive debut of a Taiwanese musician Jay Chou, who moreover composed the soundtrack for it (along with Therdsak Chanpan), and also stared as an actor and a co-writer of the screenplay for it. “Secret” was awarded “Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year”, “Best Visual Effects”, “Best Original Song” (for “Secret” by Chou) at the 44th Golden Horse Awards in 2007. It was also nominated for “Best Asian Film” at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2008.
Main characters Ye Xianglun (performed by Jay Chou) and Lu Xiaoyu (by Gwei Lun-mei) meet at Tamkang Secondary School, which is famous for musically talented students. While Xianglun takes a walk through the building on his first day in the new school, his ear catches a mysterious melody. Leaded by it he walks on the piano room, where he meets a lovely girl, Xiaoyu, who is as mysterious as the melody she was playing. Two young people begin to spend more time with each other and soon get into a tender relationship. Xiaoyu has a lot of secrets, but the most desirable of them for Xianglun is a melody that walked him to her. When Xiaoyu gets to know that piano room is under the demolition on their graduation day, she teaches Xianglun to play the mysterious song. After Xiaoyu wrongly interprets some consequences, the idea Xianglun is having the relationship with his classmate Qing Yi gets into Xiaoyu’s head and she decides to disappear from his life.
That’s where the mystery of the film gets overflowing!
Xianglun tries to find Xiaoyu, but he fails to do it. After some researches Xianglun took, he finally discovers the whole story about her. Xiaoyu was a student from a class of 1979 of Tamkang Secondary School, which was 20 years before Xianglun begins his studies there. She travelled forward in time while playing the piano piece “Secret” on the old piano in the piano building of the school. After all students of the school had to know about her travelling, they proclaimed her mentally ill.
Xianglun was the only one who was able to see Xiaoyu when she travelled to his time. Two young people had fallen in love with each other, but after Xiaoyu concluded Xianglun belonged to the other girl, she returned to her time heartbroken and suddenly died of an asthma attack while writing love message to Xianglun on her usual desk in their class. The message formulates in the present, due to the fact the changes in the past provoke changes in the present, and Xianglun sees it. He tries desperately to write back to Xiaoyu, but gets no response.
When Xianglun discovers all the truth about Xiaoyu's time travels from her mother and his own father, who is also school’s discipline teacher, he gets to understanding of the actual meaning of that mysterious “Secret” melody Xiaoyu taught him to play. He realizes that it has the power to take the pianist forward or backward in time depending on the tempo at which it is played.
Xianglun makes his way to the old piano building, which is about to be destroyed, and starts to play “Secret” from memory which transfers him back to 1979 to the time before Xiaoyu has found “Secret”. That’s when Xianglun and Xiaoyu meet for their first time. And when the 1979 Tamkang Secondary School graduation picture is taken they both are on it.
The first thing that needs to be praised is a masterful director’s work. Captivating plot of the film carries the audience smoothly through one scene to another. Film scenes, intertwining with each other, form a tangle of millions emotions, which are interwoven and entangled over and over till the end of the story. Romantic and very tender scenes with only two young people in them, fantastic scenes of Jay Chou’s magnificent piano playing, an enigmatic atmosphere of every scene with Gwei Lun-mei, - it seems that film contains every emotion in the world. The plot is full of tension; it gets extremely dramatic in some places.
The scene of the film in which Xiaoyu stands on her tiptoes and whispers the word “Secret” in Xianglun’s ear for the first time is right where the audience begins to feel that incomparable mysterious feeling. And it is up there in the air till the very moment closing titles appear on the screen.
The plot of the film is rather surprisingly built. The first 45 minutes of the film the audience watches how the sympathy of Xianglun and Xiaoyu to each other develops into a tender relationship. “Secret” seems to tell the audience a nice and romantic, but very casual tale about love. But then, as the story unfolds, the audience gets involved into a mysterious story with an uncertain ending.
The film leaves a very pleasant feeling after watching it. Happy endings very often cause the sense of some incompleteness of the story. But with “Secret” it is all on the contrary. All the interlocking stories of the film lead to a fitting denouement of the main mystic story, maybe not very logically and not that easy to catch at once, but still fitting and understandable. Xianglun and Xiaoyu both successfully graduated, the old piano is destroyed and buried there somewhere under the wreckage of the old piano building. The destruction of the piano makes the happy ending of the film the end of the mystic story.
If the director aims to tell us the story and to share his own vision of it, then the camera operator’s goal is to get through to the audience with it.
It would be unfair not to merit the work of camera operator. Different settings and methods are combined in the film to make every scene the most expressive possible. Camera draws the attention of the audience to all the significant and valuable details. Camera operator uses close-ups to reflect the characters’ feelings in the most sensible way, to point out every reaction, every change in the mood and behavior. Tracking shots are used especially to inspire a reasonable opening for the talent of Gwei Lun-mei to help her reveal her character Xiaoyu, to express her tenderness and delicacy, to show how light and vital she is and reflect how slightly and beautifully she moves.
One should also mention the virtuosity of sound producers who worked on sound effects for the film. Each move of the characters is accompanied masterfully. Even the sound of unfolding paper note which Xianglun passes to Xiaoyu is very sensitively reproduced.
Film is full of music; we can hear it, even when nobody is playing the piano. Music soundtrack for the film was written by Therdsak Chanpan and Jay Chou. Every instrumental composition in the film conveys a unique atmosphere of the scene it is performed in. The music underlines mood and emphasizes personality of the characters; it evokes feelings of the audience and connects all the film scenes into one majestic symphony.
The music written for the film would have been brilliant enough to become a soundtrack for a silent picture. What cannot be put into words is so naturally expressed by the magical piano music played by Jay Chou.
There are not many characters in the film; the story develops around Xianglun and Xiaoyu. There are secondary characters in the cast like the students and teachers of the school, but the leads and what’s happening among them have the major audience’s attention.
Scenes in which Jay’s character Xianglun plays his extraordinary music should be noted particularly. Those with Xianglun playing with his one hand and even with his upturned face, the one where Xianglun plays two pianos at the same time and Xiaoyu dances for him, are the most impressive scenes of the film. As to Jay Chou’s acting, his character seems to lack emotionality. Chou does a very good job as a piano player, but as an actor he seems to give his part not enough personally.
The most fascinating character is Xiaoyu played by Gwei Lun-mei. Gwei Lun-mei’s incredible charisma makes Xiaoyu a nice and appealing personage. Very talentedly performed, her character creates that miraculously mysterious atmosphere in the film and makes the scenes emotional and very convincing. Undoubtedly, her impressive acting adds a lot to the film and makes a great contribution to the general perception of it by the audience.
There should also be mentioned Anthony Wong Chau-Sang’s acting who performed father of Xianglun. With all his directness and unconstraint, he is a very deep character, who brings some special graceful wisdom to the film.
When you get to read the other reviews written on the film, you realize nobody expected the “Secret” to be something more than another soap-opera for Jay Chou’s teen fans. How mistaken they were! Most of the experts that reviewed the film, praise Jay Chou’s beautiful art direction, cinematography and majestic music, they emphasize an impressive acting talent of Gwei Lun-mei and, on the contrary, blame Jay Chou for being too distant and not emotional in his acting.
Asianmovieweb even conveys that Gwei Lun-mei “manages to carry the movie on her shoulders almost completely on her own and makes the chemistry between her and Jay Chou seem credible”. Asianmovieweb also marks lots of logical gaps, “that could ruin the viewing experience when reflecting too much” and refers to the final scene as “a bit contrived”. But, due to that source, that all is smoothed out by the great plot twist, which makes “a simple love story” “so appealing and somewhat special in the end”.
Lovehkfilm calls “Secret” unconvincing. It’s mentioned that the film “sets up rules that it eventually doesn't follow, achieving its intended gooshy emotions but leaving the audience to question just exactly how they got there”. Lovehkfilm gives the opinion that “Secret” is a typical film for teen audience, not good enough to watch it more than once, as “Further viewings would only reveal the film's holes to be gaping and perhaps intolerable, but upon first glance, Secret is pretty and polished enough to charm”.
Variety praises “Secret” to be a “genuinely impressive undertaking by the 28-year-old composer-performer”.
Moviexclusive identifies three main reasons of the success of the film. First of all, it’s Jay Chou’s popularity as a romantic songs singer; the second would be a good choice of cast, and especially Gwei Lun-mei for the role of Xiaoyu; and the last one is the “onslaught of piano performances in this movie”, which, due to the opinion given on the source makes the film spectacular.
References:
- Selzer, Manfred. “Secret”. asianmovieweb, n.d. Web. 27.11.2013.
- “Secret”. lovehkfilm, n.d. Web. 27.11.2013.
- Elley, Derek. “Review: “Secret”. variety, 30 Sept. 2007. Web. 27.11.2013.
- Lim, Richard, Jr. “SECRET (Taiwan)”. moviexclusive, n.d. Web. 27.11.2013.
