The Chariot Posted Soundless Wind Chime

Soundless Wind Chime is a rarity: a film that shows us the very scruffy side of Hong Kong without populating it with gangsters. Instead we get a small-scale same-sex love story played out in tiny apartments, dirty restaurants, and claustrophobic clubs, all shot in grainy handheld style. Writer/director Hung Wing Kit has something here, but unfortunately he sabotages himself a bit by trying to overlay a bit too much "art" and ends up partially burying his good story under a layer of pretension.

It's easy to feel sympathy for Ricky (Lu Yulai), a young gay man working as a delivery boy at a crummy restaurant while living in one room with his foul-mouthed and aging aunt (Wella Zhang), who works in the next room as a prostitute. When Ricky stops one day to watch some Swiss street performers, his wallet is pickpocketed by one of them, the enigmatic Pascal (Bernhard Bulling), who, after a pang of guilt, decides to return it.

Pascal is trying to get away from his partner, the violent and cold-hearted Marcus (Hannes Lindenblatt), and he literally runs into Ricky's arms, and the two are instantly a couple. Pascal finds safety (and a tiny place to live) with Ricky, and Ricky finds excitement for the first time in his life. Pascal gets a job teaching kindergarten, and all seems well.

Sadly, though, Pascal is a player, and he repeatedly breaks Ricky's heart by becoming a barfly and indulging in lots of messing around. Ricky is patient but must decide how he wants to proceed if his life is truly to take shape in a positive way.

All that would be fine if it were presented matter-of-factly and in order, but Hung has a thing for flash forwards and flashbacks, and he also throws in another parallel storyline (told out of sequence) in which Ricky travels to Switzerland and encounters Ueli, a junk shop owner who is also played by Bulling. What's that about?

Fans of Asian cinema may watch this film and think that Hung has been influenced by the films of Tsai Ming-liang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, both of whom are masters of the understated and the elliptical. Hung isn't there yet, and he would have found greater success had he simply made the most of his excellent camera work and humble story and left out the "art." Contrasting the congestion of Hong Kong with the wide open spaces of Switzerland is fascinating enough. Why confuse the issue with doppelgangers unresolved mysteries that may be meant to evoke a sense of life's unpredictability but instead just leave us wondering what's happening?

Hung has a lot to offer as a filmmaker; the wonderful atmospherics of this film make that clear. What he needs now is a script that presents a straightforward and human story. Once he has that, there's no better canvas on which to paint than Hong Kong itself.