The Taste of Betel Nut (2017)

Du potentiel et des beaux paysages ne suffisent pas toujours

J'ai vu The Taste of Betel Nut et j'ai apprécié mon visionnage mais il y a tout de même des aspects qui m'ont bien moins plus, c'est pourquoi je voudrais faire part ici de mon ressenti.

Tout d'abord, le film n'est pas sans rappeler un autre où d'ailleurs joue Leslie Cheung ( coïncidence ? ) : Once a Thief de John Woo ( Les Associés, en France ) sorti en 1991. Film - ou plutôt produit commercial de divertissement, devrais-je dire - qui a permis à son réalisateur de remettre sa carrière, qui battait franchement de l'aile à l'époque, sur les rails de la célébrité.

The Taste of Betel Nut nous rappelle donc le trio hongkongais de Once a Thief mais avec des caractéristiques chinoises, ici, pas de voitures de luxe mais de vieilles motos side-car et les "méchants" ne sont pas des criminels mondialement connus mais de petits locaux trainants dans la zone portuaire.

Notre trio de protagonistes est bien plus casse-cou également et, à eux trois, font les 400 coups aussi bien dans les méfaits de petite envergure que dans les relations charnelles qu'ils expérimentent. Car, oui, ici la romance n'est pas laissée à l'imagination du spectateur surtout concernant notre sosie de Leslie Cheung, Ren Yu, qui est particulièrement objectivé, son corps sexualisé au possible dans des sous-vêtements trop serrés que la caméra ne manque pas de mettre en valeur.

En effet, il est difficile de manquer le personnage de Ren Yu de part son charisme et la manière dont il incarne une sorte de GO de province et le gigolo du coin sans aucune ambition si ce n'est de profiter de la vie dans son petit paradis personnel.

Zhao Bingrui, quant à lui, joue un Li Qi aux expressions subtiles avec un regard fier et résolu mais qui semble aussi cacher une douleur silencieuse.

Et donc, vient s'adjoindre à ce duo d'amants ( à temps partiel ), la jeune et jolie Bai Ling, venue pour les vacances, qui sera fascinée par le couple ( avec une nette préférence pour l'un des deux ! )

À noter que dans le film, l'endroit choisi est aussi important que les personnages principaux. L'île de Hainan est en effet surnommée "l'Hawaï chinois" en raison de la vision paradisiaque type carte postale qui est vantée aux vacanciers. Mais la vérité est toute autre avec une réalité pleine de boutiques côtières délabrées, de restaurateurs / vendeurs de rue illégaux et de bande de petits malfrats qui évoluent au milieu des groupes de dames âgées en vacances. Le réalisateur, Hu Jia, a su néanmoins montrer un aspect de la culture traditionnelle de l'endroit via la noix de bétel qui promet à ses consommateurs une libération des sens et des esprits qui durera tout leur séjour.

Ce qui ébranle fortement la narration du film c'est définitivement son montage maladroit, ses fondus enchainés sur écran noir ne suivent absolument pas le développement de l'histoire, cela, à mon sens, perturbe plutôt que de donner une continuité au récit. D'autres outils de montage, également, sont utilisés de manière trop simplistes ou sont sur-utilisés, ce qui nuit au potentiel narratif du film.

Certaines scènes m'ont tout de même beaucoup plu comme les explosions qui arrivent parfois dans la carrière au loin de la vue qu'on a depuis la terrasse de l'appartement de Li Qi et Ren Yu qui retentissaient comme un prémisse à la destruction de leur petit paradis personnel. Ou encore les scènes de pas dans la mer avec le son que l'on peut entendre lorsqu'on a la tête sous l'eau qui montrait comme une réalité étouffée, ouatée, qui créait une atmosphère anxiogène, dont quelqu'un n'arriverait pas à se sortir malgré sa conscience de la situation. Symptômes pareils à ce que l'on pourrait ressentir après un trauma crânien.

En résumé ( et sans spoils ! ), un film avec ses défauts et ses qualités qui est à voir juste pour... découvrir.

Maintenant, à vous de vous faire votre avis

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From the photo cover alone, it's clear that this film is promoted as an exploration of polyamory between two guys and a girl. And while that dynamic does eventually come to fruition, I feel like the plot is simultaneously more and less than that.

There's not much dialogue here. This film does most of its storytelling with showing, and not telling, which sounds better in theory than execution. Especially in the third act, where nothing that any of the characters do seems to make much sense.

At a few minutes short of being a respectable hour and a half long, this movie doesn't overstay its welcome. But it spends just about the entire first hour establishing the unconventional lives and relationship of two free-spirited roommates and occasional lovers residing in beachside China. So, by the time the girl enters the picture, we're already well into 2/3 of the movie.

That's where this otherwise slowly paced spectacle starts to engage itself a little more. Most of the film's dialogue takes place here but by that time, it's too little, too late. Just about all three character's actions and motivations feel shockingly sudden, given that the earlier portion of the film didn't explore them much outside of lingering and pensive vanity shots. The last 10 to 15 minutes were especially jarring with an ending that feels thrown together for shock value.

In closing, I feel it's necessary to mention that if you were watching in hopes of balanced bisexual representation, you won't get that here. Although the movie, to a detriment, introduces the female lead much later than it should have, the film aesthetically (and arguably, narratively) leans towards the hetero intimacy of it all. However, it's made in China so the queer destitution tracks. I'm sure that fault had more to do with censoring itself for cultural sensibilities and less to do with careless writing.

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Whirlwind of love and revenge on a tourist island

He works for a dolphin and sea lion show at Fantastic Ocean. He works at a karaoke bar on a beach on the Chinese island of Hainan, where they both live. He is a talented trainer of aquatic mammals. He succeeds in his traveling business, in part because he bears a striking resemblance to the late Chinese actor and singer Leslie Cheung. He waits for him with dinner ready and both of their underwear clean. He is a daring and handsome boy who also has sexual relations with women and walks around the beach, the streets and the house half-naked. He, in silence, awaits your return. He, drunk, comes home late after playing with other men. Both help in an illicit business, while committing petty robberies and other mischief, such as recovering their assets seized by the police.
Li Qi (Shen Shiyu) and Ren Yu (Zhao Bingrui) are two young men who live a wonderfully simple life as a couple. Happy, between the two of them they have built their own earthly paradise.
However, things change when an attractive young woman, Bai Ling (Yue Yue), comes into their lives and drastically shakes their reality. When the daughter of the illegal beach food vendor joins the two men, a three-way relationship seems possible. Li Qi shines around him. She shines around Ren Yu ('Marriage Proposal Say Yes!', 2013 and 'Love in Late Autumn, 2016'). In this classic love triangle, does the girl know about Qi and Ren Yu? Does he know they are a couple? The truth is that the three of them intend to test the limitations of their own sexuality.
The lovers now face difficult decisions because they want to explore their sexuality further and include Bai Ling ('A Woman', 2022; 'Mother in the Mist', 2021), in their relationship. At times, the loving trio disappears to become a secret couple again, but now between Bai Ling and Ren Yu. But the latter will not accept his proposal to be her boyfriend and live in a distant city. Could love for Li Qi be the reason for his rejection? Don't you want to enter an uncertain, but promising future? Why then does he kiss her and while they are living their idyll, the tragedy occurs that will shake the three of them to the depths of their being?
The film, which begins at the end, initially tells us how one of the main characters commits a heinous crime motivated by revenge and then goes to the roots of the conflict to expose the reasons that motivated the revenge.
Also skillful is the location of the plot in one of the tropical and paradisiacal beach areas of Hainan (in Chinese, 海南; pinyin, Hǎinán; literally, 'South Sea'), the smallest and southern province of the People's Republic of China. The site surprises by becoming another protagonist, the fourth, of the film. Its streets and shops show the wounds of the passage of successive typhoons that hit what is now the largest Special Economic Zone of the Asian giant.
Like an island from which you can only leave by air or sea, our protagonists will also find themselves unable to escape their own destiny. This is marked from the very title of the film. The main reason to chew Asian betel nut or areca nut is for its stimulating and slightly euphoric effects. The person who consumes it obtains a greater feeling of alertness, a sensation of heat throughout the body.
Subtle and masterful use of metaphor to mark the destruction of the paradise in which Li Qi and Ren Yu have lived with the interweaving of the Chinese tradition of consuming betel nuts with the risks to human health associated with the prolonged use of these seeds. , since this practice has led thousands of people to an early death.
Released in April 2017, the film, by Chinese director and screenwriter Hu Jia, won the China Stard Best Film Award 2018. It was also presented at the Berlin International Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival and Hong Kong International Film Festival, in its 2017 editions.
The yaoi genre romantic drama 'The Taste of Betel Nut' (槟榔血) depicts a story of revenge and young love, a story about the growing desire for intimacy between two men and a woman.
Very cleverly, Hu Jia makes unique decisions in writing the script and developing the plot of the film. The choice to include few dialogues does not discourage the viewer. On the contrary, it awakens in us an interest in discovering where the film story will take us. This way, the audience will be able to appreciate the images and focus more on the characters' actions.
The writer and director creates a fractured storyboard that unfolds like a puzzle: fundamental pieces are missing to finish the work. Together, he and the viewer, we will have the task of, as the footage rolls, compare the fragments we have with those intentionally omitted, in order to advance through the incomplete scenes that have kept us in the dark until we reach the light. and with this the understanding of the narrated events.
The ending is open. The viewer, once again behind the cameras, has several pieces of the puzzle in their hands. According to his wishes, only one of them may be the right one to complete the puzzle: on the terrace of his house, between sheets swinging in the air, Ren Yu, with obvious scars on his shaved head and with a slow, hesitant step, has been able come out of the coma and now turns his face and smiles at someone who approaches. Is it Li Qi who has been able to escape the fury of the bullies? Has Ren Yu waited for him during his years in prison for the crime committed? Is it just Ren Yu's imagination? Like Ren Yu, Li Qi has also died at the hands of the gang and they both meet again in another paradise, but this time heavenly?

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