MOVIE REVIEW: Crossing a Dawn ~ FILMYWAPAS

Images courtesy of Omnibus Entertainment

CROSSING A DAWN— 4 STARS

LESSON #1: SOMEONE SEND RICHARD LINKLATER FLOWERS OR A FRUIT BASKET— True as angels getting their wings every time a bell rings in the soft fantasy world of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, beloved Texas filmmaker Richard Linklater gets a fruit basket every time a new walk-and-talk movie comes around. As tested in Slacker and perfected in his Before trilogy, which began with Before Sunrise in 1995, cinema owes him flattering gifts for defining and solidifying the “wanderlust film” as a tried-and-true approach to romantic comedies and dramas. An adorable new Chinese film, Crossing a Dawn, proves the template—complete with name-dropped homages to Linklaker—works in other languages just as well.

Xu Qiu (Sinchun Ma of The Left Ear and Soulmate) is a thirtysomething interior designer who has no problem putting herself out there for online dating in Beijing. More often than not, she’s snapping pictures and swiping in different directions to set up single nights of lusty conquest. A semi-materialist and voracious aura seeker who does not believe in love at first sight, Xu Qiu has no qualms about online privacy or what seeking that kind of action makes her appear to be, compared to looking for any sort of stable and lasting relationship. She takes it night by night.

On one particular evening, Xu Qiu thinks she’s meeting an adventurous young snowboarder at a grocery store meet-up. Seeing the app-requested signal of a brown coat, she immediately flirts with a young man fitting the description, only to get the wrong person when the actual match, an older guy who faked a youthful profile picture, confronts and harasses her next. The younger guy, Chen Yuzhou (Edward Chen of Your Name Engraved Herein), dumbstruck by the circumstance, yet smitten, steps in to get Xu Qiu out of the situation. They talk more outside the supermarket and, owing him some assistive gratitude, she invites him to hang around, thus kicking off the Linklater stroll of Crossing a Dawn.

LESSON #2: BRING FORTH THE WALK-AND-TALK MOVIE TROPES— Comparable to the “one crazy night” variety movies only at a lower speed, several key elements make a walk-and-talk movie like Linklater’s imitators and Crossing a Dawn irresistible. The first is the setting. The travelogue side quests of a walk-and-talk movie are a location manager and cinematographer’s dream (or likely logistical nightmare, but, hey, that’s what gives them a degree of difficulty and makes them special). Here, late-night Beijing fits as an interesting place with open possibilities and a wide visual palette. The second is romantic kismet. If we’re going to thrust two alluring people together for a long stretch of quality time, sprinkles of fate and will-they/won’t-they intrigue must be tangible. That quality comes from the writing and performances.

In Crossing a Dawn, surging self-assured electricity radiates off of Sinchun Ma’s free-spirited lead. Her Xi Qiu operates with thirsty confidence and is driven by moment-to-moment success. She is all the energy necessary to make this film move, and her style of sexual positivity is an enormous plus. The furtive glances between her and Edward Chen get more frequent. The eye contact, yoked by her perfect head tilt, gets longer, and the physical proximity closes by the minute, all thanks to her undeniable charisma.

LESSON #3: THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF CHARMING IS NOT KNOWING YOU ARE— Alas, what makes director Badou Zhao’s feature-length debut film sing, literally and figuratively, is the accommodating and game personality foil represented by the aspiring writer Chen Yuzhou. In a simpler setup, the character could easily be reduced to the tagalong deer-in-the-headlights beau or the impatient, vacant horndog looking to score. Instead, his humbled, cultured, and emotionally available personality is a balm to the whole journey. When typical one-crazy-night or walk-and-talk pitfalls come around—and they do between charging dead phones, karaoke booths, running into exes, and hookup hotel hurdles—it’s frequently Chen Yuzhou’s place to know exactly how to roll with the punches, say the right thing, and make the best of the situation.

LESSON #4: YOU ARE NOT YOUR DATING PROFILE— As it turns out, Crossing a Dawn stands out as a loose treatise on online dating. People are more than their online profiles, and there are both good and bad intentions behind the looseness of true and false traits. While Xi Qiu hates liars and laments where the good men have gone, Chen Yuzhou avoids the scene completely. Both of them put on semi-false shows of success that may or may not follow them offline in this extended interpersonal date. The top reason for those inconsistencies and stress points of resistance is almost always fear. Still, the emotion of “like” is undeniably mutual, but the distance from that to “love” is the differentiating quandary.

The last engaging trait of a good walk-and-talk movie like Crossing a Dawn is the ability to create an approachable and honest experience. While you want to be drawn to the appeal of the combined potential couple in question as they fully speak and recognize that a version of Before Sunrise is happening to them, you, the viewer, want to play your own “what would you do with the chance” mental game. The night can’t be a drag, and this film’s snappy editing and layered comic art overlays keep the pace strong. Like the characters, you are considering each of the sliding doors of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-esque scenarios or internally planning your own walk-and-talk night in your favorite place. When done right, the rooting delight of these intimate jaunts damn near works every time.