A surprisingly powerful anti-romantic drama
Looking at the cast and synopsis of 12 Nights, I was not expecting anything. Cecilia doing her 12th movie of the year, Eason "I try to be as bad as Nick Cheung in a comedy" Chan, A meets B, they fall in love, blablabla. But the appearances are sometimes only appearances, and 12 Nights is quite simply an excellent movie, not very "pleasant" to watch, but surely efficient in its purpose.
Why do I say that the movie is excellent and unpleasant to watch ? Quite simply because it doesn't try to be a movie, with its so called "genre", codes, and what so ever. Just like another powerful drama (the huge Till deat do us part), the first movie of Aubrey Lam never tries to simplify or arrange the reality of a love story. Everything is very realistic, without any attempt to give make things better or worse than they are. There is no white or black color in 12 Nights, only grey. That's why the movie cannot be considered as "pleasant" to watch. Everybody should find in the movie a situation (s)he has already met, and some of those situations could be painful memories.
Still, it doesn't mean that 12 Nights is totally uninteresting because everything in the movie is too real and already known. This very realistic and touching script is not the only quality of the movie. The directing from Aubrey Lam doesn't suffer from any big mistake, the music is well chosen, and the actors are very convincing. Eason Chan can be good when he is not goofing, and Cecilia is a good actress, even if at this period she was doing too many movies.
Fans of "movies", as an entertainment object, will probably not find what they are looking for in 12 Nights. There is no extraordinary situation, or extraordinary character, no romantic joyful or sad moments, only real pieces of life. And life is not always sad, or not always happy. This cake with some pieces of life is made with a lot of care and attention, and its taste is a bit bitter. But it's a very interesting and daring attempt to cook something different from all the usual sweet romances. Recommended.
