By Movie Fan Blogger James Zheng

I hardly ever watch Chinese films, but I found a Chinese movie that I really want to talk about. I have several reasons for not watching Chinese movies; the majority of them are really awful.

But not all of them are awful.  While most are low quality products, you can find that ten percent of Chinese movies are exceptional works.

The movie I am going to talk about in this post is a romantic movie that has a simple story. It is mainly about the torturous experience of a couple, the disharmony they have and how they work it out. Well, do they eventually work it out? My answer is watch this film yourself and find out.

The part that draws the most attention is the preparation of actors. Kris Wu, a Chinese Canadian musical artist, is invited by director Zhou Tuoru to perform as the major character in Never Gone. I went into the movie wondering why a director would let a popular music idol be in a film. The director might just as well focus on how good looking the actors are rather than how skilled they are as actors. Two days ago, before I watched Never Gone, I read many negative comments saying how Kris Wu ruined the movie.

After seeing these pathetic comments, I finally chose to watch the movie to give it an “authentic” review. Here it goes–every setting being used in Never Gone has been used at least a thousand times. I could even say that if you are a romantic movie person, you can tell what will happen in the next second; you can see where the plot is going without questioning it. And, dialogues between the characters always give me a sense of being … embarrassed since the dialogue seems improper in that situation or just too generic. And, most times, Kris Wu’s acting just collapses; in other words, his acting is just extremely terrible or over-exaggerated.

So, overall. Is it a worthless film? Just wait: here are some positive things I have to say about it. The story of the movie is really similar to our daily life and reality; it isn’t that dramatic, which is the common flaw the director avoided. In that sense, he rejected the traditional style of romantic movies. In agreement with the negative reviews, I also think that Kris Wu’s acting is truly amateur and inflexible. However, his performance still left me an un-erasable impression. His emotion is real. He expresses his sentiment in the most explicit way. He conscientiously integrates himself into the show; he strives to present to us what the character should be feeling. After all, if you only take it from a single perspective and follow the majority opinion, you may only describe how bad it is. You would never observe Kris Wu’s achievement.

In the end, I am still not sure if I should recommend this movie. If you are interested in a romantic movie, you should try to watch it and see what comments you have.

Editor: Makena Behnke

*Available on Amazon Prime.