English Title: Too Late For Love
Starring:
Ivy Ling Po, Kwan Shan
Rating:
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Plot Summary
It seems as if tragic fate often bestows upon women or maybe that the Asian cinema's script writers usually love to make female characters the victims of their storyline. Too Late For Love depicts a misfortunate story of a powerful general's daughter (Ling Po) whose destiny is doomed from happiness since her first appearance in the film. The young lady is pestimistic about life in general. She clearly has never gotten over the death of her mother, is quite troubled by the ill-treatment from her stepmom, and doesn't seem to be very avid about her upcoming marriage to a young soldier (Kwan Shan).
 Before the film proceeds, one can predict that this young bride is not going to have a happy marriage. For a person who is already depressed while living at home, achieving happiness in the role of a wife and a duty of a daughter-in-law is nearly impossible. With the antediluvian tradition that expects the bride to live with the husband's side of the family after marriage, she is to follow the earlier footsteps and serves her mother-in-law. To make matter worse, the old lady's mission seems to be casting miseries upon her daugther-in-law's life. Everyday she would make caustic remarks about everything or anything that the young wife did, using words that are like a sharp knife that goes straight into the other person's heart.
Eventually, the marriage comes to an end and a decision is made solely by the mother-in-law. At last, the young wife dies in hopelessness after spending nearly her entire short life toiling blood and tears.
Review
If it is still not obvious from the summary above, let's me say this one more time: this film is filled with sadness from the beginning until the end. Quite frankly, I hate films with such storylines - the character's depressing life seems too much of a coincident. It is almost as if it was written this way just for the sake of being dramatic.
For starters, I can't believe there was a general at that time in China who would do nothing when the groom's side annuls the marriage. This is a humilation for the bride's side. And a majority would agree with me that usually most families at this time wouldn't even dare to think twice about such idea or to mistreat the daughter of a powerful general this way. Moreoever, this groom's side of the family holds no military power!
 Secondly, what's wrong with that mother-in-law?! What a Witch (with a B). The woman has gone way above and beyond what I would called "being picky". For God's sake, if she wants to be the center of her son's attention - then don't marry him a wife. She needs to be reminded that he is her son and not husband! His main concern should be his wife; especially, when they are a newly wed couple.
Lastly, it bugs me to see such a weak character. I'm not opposing to the idea of being a good wife and a good daughter-in-law. However, one shouldn't always hang onto such concept even when things have gone beyond reasons. Maybe women born in this era were being brought up this way. A mother-in-law like this woman is lucky that I wasn't born then. Otherwise, she would have been the one visiting the doctor for heart problems and not me. On top of that, the storyline is very predictable. Maybe it's because I have seen too many movies of similarities, from the minute Ivy appears onscreen I was able to guess what is will happen next with her character.
Prior to watching this movie, I thought the film was going to be about a young married couple who are then being separated by war and that the wife must bear many misfortune (not by the mother-in-law) once the husband took off to defend the country. And that in the end, he never came back but only the news of his death arrived after she had waited for many years. Somewhere along that storyline. I think I would have enjoyed it more this way.
On that note I just want to say that all cast members threw a wonderful performance. However, unlike watching The Love Eterne, I didn't enjoy seeing Ivy toiling blood and tears in this movie. Again, her character is too depressing and tragic.
DVD Information
This movie had been re-released by Celestial Pictures Limited on November 2003 and is available for purchase online. Refer to the "Resources" section for more information on retailers.
Picture: Very Good
Sound: Very Good
DVD Code: Region 3
Running Time: 99 minutes
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