Love in the City (2007)

Starring:
Shawn Yue
Gao Yuanyuan
Takuya Suzuki
Miyake Nao

Director Jingle Ma's Love in the City presents two wholesome little stories about love set in rural China. However, the interest and effectiveness of each differs quite a bit. Traffic cop Yang Le (Shawn Yue) has a thing for deaf-mute Xiaolou (Gao Yuanyuan), who wanders by his crossing every day. The infatuation goes both ways, and before you know it, Le is learning sign language in an attempt to impress his ideal girl. She responds to his smiles and glances, but when he finally gets the nerve to ask her out, she leaves the city and goes to the countryside to visit her father's farm. Le hightails it out there too, confesses his love, and before long they're holding hands and are deeply in love.

Meanwhile, Japanese-Chinese translator Makoto (Takuya Suzuki) falls hard and fast for actress Yuko (Miyake Nao). He's assigned to be her assistant/translator while her current one is in the hospital, and there's a noticeable initial attraction between the two. Circumstances lead them to spar a bit, but the sparks and situations give way to a pure affection, and before long they're holding hands and are deeply in love.

Ahhhh! This was such a slow, sweet movie about love. I don't recommend this to girls to watch with their guys. Definite girl movie. If my husband watched this, he would have gagged and walked away within 2 minutes of the beginning of the movie.

I would have have thought I would see the day that Shawn Yue would play a loving, sweet guy. This is not his normal type movie. Heck the last movie I saw with him was Shamo and he was a psychotic ultimate fighter. I thought I would never see the day. And to tell you the truth.....I loved him this way. It was so....so....strange but yet nice. Oh so nice for a change.

Another actor, Suzuki Takuya, was a new one to my AsianOtaku eyes. Strange that I've never seen him before. And if I have, well, this was a first that he was a main character in the forefront, per se. His love story was a sub story. A filler, I guess. That story wasn't as catching because of the time frame it was given. Not enough emotion and character to get into their story. Also, their story, had a sudden twist that bound the first love story with Shawn Yue. I won't say but it was different but it really didn't make a difference to any of the story but it would have been nice to have tied off that twist. They could have magnified onto that but left it to fray in the wind.

Happily, it was a good ending, but I do advise those female counterparts to have a few tissues handy because it is a heart tugger at the end.

Suzuki Takuya