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Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (2014)
Disgusting, dark, toxic, full of hate and madness. Perhaps the most nihilistic of To films. A modern world devoid of love, where human relationships are merely an exchange. A person for another person, an expensive gift for a promise. People are unable to love, thrashing about and using others, to manipulate and hurt. An act of madness is enough to make a decision on impulse - just as the characters make a decision in the stock market. Up or Down? Will he or won't he? Will she choose this or that? Once it's up, and once it's down. As in the stock market, so in life. The octopus always chooses wrong, but at least it always chooses the same. And while the first film ended in a more genre-standard way, here the ending is bitter, without trying to beautify, embellish or sweeten it (which of course is deliberate). Whereas in most romantic comedies the ending is triumphant, here it's toned down to the extreme. By reverse thinking, an octopus always chooses wrong, so clearly reversed is also the choice in relation to the first Don't Go Breaking My Heart.
The penultimate scene in the elevator definitively shows if the choice was right (no, it's not a fairy tale) and the last scene shows the final, devastating defeat. This is not just the defeat of one character. It is a failure of modern man, who has lost a part of himself, a part of love. Especially in this culture, this country, these times, this environment. There's a reason the finale takes place in Suzhou. For most of the duration time, To conducts a narrative typical of the genre, occasionally sprinkling it with interesting ideas, but in the finale, Johnnie goes down such a mocking path that I'm not surprised the point flew right over so many people's head. Incidentally, Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 is probably the most Douglas Sirk film of Johnnie To in that it uses an unbearable genre (saccharine harlequin vs. standard romantic comedy for normies) but adds dark, hidden content that elevates the whole thing into the echelons of excellence.
Louis Koo singing a song while climbing a skyscraper, pausing every two words to catch his breath is, upon further reflection, probably the most brilliant scene in the film. Hell, earlier in the film Louis Koo communicated with others through office building's windows, but there was a considerable space separating the characters. In the finale, Louis Koo reduces the space and lets the characters observe him up from close, but there's still glass separating them. Invisible space separating characters is a common theme in many Johnnie To films. It's not just about the relation of one character to another. It's also about their relation to space.
Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 is a masterpiece. Naturally, working in the system he works in, To has no choice but to rigidly adhere to the framework of the genre when reconstructing it. This makes the film a romantic comedy with all the flaws of that fact. I hate Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, but I have to give it to To: you did it again. Johnnie To, I bow to you low!
Disgusting, dark, toxic, full of hate and madness. Perhaps the most nihilistic of To films. A modern world devoid of love, where human relationships are merely an exchange. A person for another person, an expensive gift for a promise. People are unable to love, thrashing about and using others, to manipulate and hurt. An act of madness is enough to make a decision on impulse - just as the characters make a decision in the stock market. Up or Down? Will he or won't he? Will she choose this or that? Once it's up, and once it's down. As in the stock market, so in life. The octopus always chooses wrong, but at least it always chooses the same. And while the first film ended in a more genre-standard way, here the ending is bitter, without trying to beautify, embellish or sweeten it (which of course is deliberate). Whereas in most romantic comedies the ending is triumphant, here it's toned down to the extreme. By reverse thinking, an octopus always chooses wrong, so clearly reversed is also the choice in relation to the first Don't Go Breaking My Heart.
The penultimate scene in the elevator definitively shows if the choice was right (no, it's not a fairy tale) and the last scene shows the final, devastating defeat. This is not just the defeat of one character. It is a failure of modern man, who has lost a part of himself, a part of love. Especially in this culture, this country, these times, this environment. There's a reason the finale takes place in Suzhou. For most of the duration time, To conducts a narrative typical of the genre, occasionally sprinkling it with interesting ideas, but in the finale, Johnnie goes down such a mocking path that I'm not surprised the point flew right over so many people's head. Incidentally, Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 is probably the most Douglas Sirk film of Johnnie To in that it uses an unbearable genre (saccharine harlequin vs. standard romantic comedy for normies) but adds dark, hidden content that elevates the whole thing into the echelons of excellence.
Louis Koo singing a song while climbing a skyscraper, pausing every two words to catch his breath is, upon further reflection, probably the most brilliant scene in the film. Hell, earlier in the film Louis Koo communicated with others through office building's windows, but there was a considerable space separating the characters. In the finale, Louis Koo reduces the space and lets the characters observe him up from close, but there's still glass separating them. Invisible space separating characters is a common theme in many Johnnie To films. It's not just about the relation of one character to another. It's also about their relation to space.
Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 is a masterpiece. Naturally, working in the system he works in, To has no choice but to rigidly adhere to the framework of the genre when reconstructing it. This makes the film a romantic comedy with all the flaws of that fact. I hate Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, but I have to give it to To: you did it again. Johnnie To, I bow to you low!
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.
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