Wait Til You're Older tells the bittersweet coming-of-age story of twelve-year-old Kwong (Sit Lap Yin), a boy who's spent the last three years in throes of deep emotional rage and denial about the suicide of his mother. He hates the world, especially his stepmom (Karen Mok), to the extent that he's got running away
down to a science: his hapless father (Felix Wong) knows exactly where to find him (and how much to bribe him!) every time Kwong runs away. All Kwong wants is to grow up so he can escape the home he hates so much, his only attachment being to his little half-brother. This being a movie, Kwong literally stumbles upon what he wants: he meets a mysterious, slightly potty old man (Feng Xiao Gang) who has invented an aging potion that turns a young sapling into a towering tree overnight. When Kwong nicks some of the potion for himself, he wakes up the next day as a dashing 20-year-old (Andy Lau), spilling out of his clothes and eager to start his new life as a grown-up. At first, he childishly revels in the freedom of being completely rude to his stepmom, standing up for his best mate Bear in school, and wooing his childhood crush and schoolteacher, the slightly emotionally unstable Miss Lee (Cherrie Yin). But, with the crushing realisation that he is aging at an exponential rate, Kwong soon realises that he's fast running out of time to set things right with his family... I think you can pretty much tell coming into this movie that it's not going to be a classic, and that it might in fact even be pretty bad--one of those relentlessly silly, whimsical fluffpieces that the Hong Kong movie industry turns out when it's not producing broody gangster films or chop-socky kungfu flicks. But a couple of other things recommended this movie to me: my sister, for one, who said it was surprisingly good and sad; and the visually arresting aging of Lau, prominently displayed during the movie's promo campaign, which allowed him to play everything from a decidedly unlined charmer in his twenties to a remarkably doddering octogenarian. Well, in both respects, the movie didn't disappoint: despite its shoddy script and blatant manipulativeness, WtYO turned out to be genuinely engaging and, yes, affecting, which I honestly had not expected it to be. Tip: if you're made of the same marshmallow constituency as me, bring a tissue or ten to mop up at the ending, because ruthlessly compact though it may be, it's a journey in growing up as scarring as any for its short length of screen-time. In the end, you invest yourself in Kwong's journey because, for all its scripting flaws, it's a heartbreaking story of love and sacrifice and, well, stupid mistakes you just have to live and ultimately die with. The special effects are also quite commendable for their subtlety: the smooth-cheeked Lau is a throwback to the Heavenly King in his heyday, and suddenly we segue into a clearly older man, lined with flecks of grey in the hair, and all too quickly the man's face has collapsed onto itself in a mass of wrinkles and a rapidly disappearing hairline. Biggest problem the movie faces is the uneven script: aside from being blatantly manipulative (hard not to be, given the subject matter!), the film is written very much in the 'convenience' school of thought. Kwong is given a token best friend who serves his purpose and then fades from the movie so quickly you hardly realise there wasn't any closure until you really think about it. The most wrenching part of the story, when Kwong is moving to set things to rights, is rushed through--I suppose, to the film-makers' credit, they didn't milk it for all its worth, which would have made the movie ten times more from the puppetmaster factory. But rushed and flimsy it remains, however wrenching it might be. Character development is patchier in some cases than others, the obsessiveness of Miss Lee paling in comparison to the complexity of Kwong's long-suffering stepmom. The aging process employed by the script is so convenient as to be almost laughable: I guess you can accept that it's exponential, but since it takes Kwong quite a few days to hit his fifties and all of one night to age another thirty years, with no real explanation behind it, it feels kind of like the script-writers needed to get through the last part of the movie fast for it to work. It also takes a while for the movie to find its groove: first it's Hong Kong Big!, then it's a bizarre love story... But finally, it settles where it really to be: a coming-of-age drama that's so literal it hurts. Setting aside the criticisms I've made so far, this is where WtYO ultimately works: it's a reasonably effective exploration of Kwong's maturing process. Benefiting from Lau's canny, charming performance, Kwong is initially childishly pleased with himself and as shallow as you'd expect a twelve-year-old kid with a new body to be, ordering beer, tailing his crush into a restaurant to catch her in an illicit meeting with the school vice-principal (Lam Ka Tung)... but, when he ages physically, what's nice about the movie is that you're not getting an accompanying sudden, inexplicable maturing in his mental processes. All his encounters in the movie, you realise, are a way for him to grow out of his childishness and rebellious mindset, as he talks to his dad and the vice-principal about what it means to be grown-up, or as he relates to Miss Lee his love for his mother (disguised as one of the loves of his life). Through it all, Kwong remains, believably, young at heart, holding on to hope even as his time runs out, the way only a true innocent could. Lau delivers a powerful performance here, playing the part of a young boy in a man's body winsomely and very convincingly, even in the tiny things like the tilt of his head, and he sparks off wonderfully with the rest of the very competent adult cast. This movie isn't for everyone - if you can't stand the whimsy in Hong Kong movies, run away. If you hate being manipulated, run far away. If you can't stand Andy Lau, well... don't necessarily allow that to stop you from trying this out. Trust me, I've never been the biggest fan of his, but he is reasonably impressive in this role. My only real recommendation if you decide to see this, even with this decidely muddled review? Please hunt out the original, Cantonese version of the movie and live with the subtitles. The deeply frustrating, poorly-dubbed Mandarin version that I watched was really distracting at first and took me ages to settle into it (especially since I know Mok sounds nothing like her Mandarin counterpart). 5.5-6/10.
October 13, 2005
