Echoes of the Rainbow

Yesterday’s years and tears



SOMETIMES we unexpectedly meet scenes in a movie that open the floodgates of childhood memories. Echoes of the Rainbow (Chinese title: Sui Yuet San Tau) has a whole cupboard full of these mementos, keepsakes and tokens that have long been forgotten with the passing of the elders.
Sometimes we wish we wouldn’t have to travel down that lane again because it can be heart-retching because of its bitter-sweet taste. This is one of the few Hong Kong films that embarks on a different path, unlike its usual fare of gangsters, murder or insane comedy.
Not surprisingly, Echoes of the Rainbow has struck a chord, and quite loudly too, in the hearts and minds of its middle-aged viewers.
We who are old enough have now arrived at that plateau in our lives when reflections of old friends, schoolmates, parents, relatives and the difficult times occur more often than expected.
In Echoes of the Rainbow, Simon Yam plays a struggling cobbler, Mr Law, who tries to make ends meet to put food on the table for his wife and two sons.
Sandra Ng, the backbone of the household, is the kind of mother who may remind many of us of our own.
She puts a protective arm around our shoulders when dad comes with the cane, and makes us forget about our outrageous demands with some funny stories.
She is also constantly at our bedside when we are sick, feeding us with spoonfuls of bland porridge whether we like it or not
This then is where the past catches up with our present and makes us appreciate what awaits us in the future.
Director Alex Law who is also responsible for the excellent script belongs that age group where flashbacks of the past are in abundance and as vivid as ever.
The dialogue is superb in this movie. It is reality par excellence because it jolts our memory of what our parents had always told us “to keep us in the right path”.
Naturally, there is a touch of adolescent romance that will put a smile on many faces. It’s that distant admiration of a girl just quite beyond our reach.
Desmond’s fledgling romance with schoolmate Flora (Evelyn Choi) may conjure similar emotional experiences which some of us have experienced.
In the realm of love, time has no relevance. The young heart often remembers with greater intensity than what mature minds may have unintentionally forgotten.
The tale is seen through a pair of young eyes, Big Ears (Buzz Chung), who is the dunce of his class. The lad is the opposite of his older brother Desmond (Aarif Lee) who’s the favourite of his parents.
Desmond excels in sports and is one of the top students at the Diocesan Boys School, which by the way is also director Law’s alma mater.
A major part of the plot focuses on Desmond who serves as the rallying point of the Law family when tragedy follows closely the heels of a typhoon that destroys the tiny family shop.
The pathos of Echoes of the Rainbow is founded upon the ground of past realities that is so familiar with Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore.
It will have special appeal for the older generations who will remember this story only too well because family quarrels and dinner conversations in the movie will resurrect old scenes of our forgotten years.
It is no wonder that Echoes of the Past won the Crystal Bear Award for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival in February this year.
On top of that, it has garnered six nominations for the 2010 Hong Kong Film Awards. It is a movie well worth watching at least once. Bring along your parents. They will thank you for it.
Echoes of the Rainbow opens in cinemas this April.