LOST AND LOVE (Peng Sanyuan). 109 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (March 20). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN
Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs) is almost unrecognizable behind a layer of dirt and beat-up clothes as a father searching for the son he lost 15 years ago. In Lost And Love, Lau’s Lei travels cross-country on a motorbike with a giant poster of his abducted child mounted on the back, handing out flyers to strangers who gently suggest that after all this time he should just give up.
Peng Sanyuan‘s film is supposedly based on a true story, though it doesn’t specify which of China’s hundreds of thousands of abduction cases it borrows from. Given this widespread and devastating situation, the movie’s quaint, comforting treatment is a letdown.
It’s actually a syrupy buddy movie. Lei happens upon a young man named Ceng (Jing Boran) who was abducted as a child, and they form a father-son bond on the road as they search for their lost family members. They share a few moving moments, opening up about what haunts them and hinting at the fear and anguish that the film otherwise keeps at a distance.
In the tacked-on third act, a preposterously engineered reunion that wraps a warm blanket around tragedy nurtures hope but feels delusional.
