Film Review: Last Song for You 久別重逢 (2024) - Hong Kong
Tagline: A Haunting Melody of Regret and Redemption
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Rating: 8/10
2025 Review Count - 65
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Full Review: https://neofilmshop.com/blogs/news/film-review-last-song-for-you-2024-hong-kong
There are films that dazzle with pyrotechnics, others that challenge with formal audacity, and then there are films like Jill Leung Lai-yin’s profoundly moving debut, “Last Song for You”, that simply, quietly, break your heart open. It’s a film that understands the weight of the past, the phantom limbs of lost love, and the desperate, often irrational, yearning for a second chance. While it navigates familiar emotional terrain and occasionally stumbles over its own earnestness, “Last Song for You” ultimately succeeds through the sheer, shimmering power of its central performances and Leung’s unwavering commitment to emotional truth. It earns its tears honestly.
We meet So Sing-wah (Ekin Cheng, carrying the film's weary soul in his eyes) not at the peak of his fame as a celebrated Cantopop songwriter, but in its long, echoing aftermath. He’s adrift, creatively barren, and adrift in a sterile Hong Kong hospital – a fitting purgatory for a man whose internal music has stopped. The encounter feels almost mundane: a brief, unexpected crossing of paths with Ha Man-huen (a luminous, understated Cecilia Choi in her fleeting moments). Yet, this chance brush with the past acts like a lightning strike to Sing-wah’s numbed psyche. She is a ghost, not literally at first, but a specter from a time when melody flowed effortlessly and love felt eternal, tied to sun-drenched memories of Cheung Chau island. Her sudden, brutal death moments later isn't just a tragedy; it’s the final lock clicking shut on a life already defined by regret. Sing-wah is plunged not just into grief, but into an abyss of unresolved longing and self-recrimination.
Enter the film’s narrative conceit, introduced with refreshing simplicity: Sing-wah, through a confluence of grief and perhaps the universe’s peculiar mercy, finds himself inexplicably transported back in time – specifically, to the pivotal days of his youthful romance with Man-huen on Cheung Chau. This is not the complex, paradox-obsessed time travel of sci-fi. Leung, working from her own script, deploys it with elegant minimalism. The mechanism is almost irrelevant; it’s purely a vehicle, a desperate man’s chance to walk the corridors of his own memory, to confront the younger, brasher, tragically oblivious version of himself (played with convincing, infuriating charm by Ian Chan). This younger So is brimming with raw talent and ambition, yet utterly blind to the fragile treasure he holds in the devoted, clear-eyed Ha Man-huen (Natalie Hsu, delivering a star-making performance of breathtaking nuance).
Here lies the film’s core, and its genius. “Last Song for You” isn't truly about changing the past in a grand, history-altering way. It’s about Sing-wah’s agonizing pilgrimage back to the moment the fracture began. He is a ghost haunting his own life, forced to witness the casual cruelties, the missed signals, the prioritizing of fleeting ambition over enduring love. Ekin Cheng’s performance in these sequences is masterful. His older Sing-wah is a silent scream of anguish wrapped in weary flesh. He observes his younger self with a mixture of profound sorrow, frustrated anger, and desperate, futile hope. He cannot shout warnings that will be heard; he can only bear witness to the origins of his own profound loneliness. The film’s Chinese title, "久別重逢 - To Meet Again After a Long Separation," resonates deeply here. It’s a reunion steeped in unbearable melancholy.
The film’s visual language beautifully underscores this emotional journey. Cinematographer Oliver Lau paints contemporary Hong Kong in cool, sterile blues and greys – the harsh fluorescence of the hospital, the rain-slicked streets reflecting neon loneliness. In stark, aching contrast, the Cheung Chau sequences are awash in the golden warmth of memory. Sunlight dapples through lush greenery, the sea sparkles with impossible blue, and the narrow village streets feel alive with the uncomplicated vibrancy of youth. These aren't just flashbacks; they are Sing-wah’s Proustian madeleines, rendered with tactile, sensual beauty that makes the impending loss all the more devastating. The score, a mix of wistful piano motifs and fragments of Cantopop ballads (presumably Sing-wah’s own), weaves through both timelines, a constant reminder of the music that connects and haunts him.
Natalie Hsu, as the younger Man-huen, is the film’s radiant, heartbreaking soul. She avoids the trap of making Man-huen a mere idealized victim. Hsu imbues her with intelligence, quiet strength, and a palpable, almost painful vulnerability. Her love for the young So is total and believable, making her gradual realization of his self-absorption, witnessed by both the audience and the older Sing-wah, utterly shattering. You see why she was the muse, the anchor, and ultimately, the loss that shattered Sing-wah’s world. Ian Chan effectively portrays the youthful arrogance and myopia that pave the road to regret. His charm is genuine, making his flaws not monstrous, but tragically human – the kind of flaws only recognized in hindsight’s cruel light.
“Last Song for You” is not without its flaws, preventing it from absolute perfection. The pacing, particularly in the transition from the initial hospital shock into the time-travel narrative, feels slightly uneven. There are moments in the second act where the film lingers a beat too long on its idyllic past, momentarily losing the tautness of Sing-wah’s desperate mission. A subplot involving the older Sing-wah’s strained relationship with his present-day manager feels underdeveloped, serving more as a narrative placeholder than a fully integrated element. The climax, while emotionally potent, leans heavily into melodrama – a choice that, while thematically consistent with its "healing drama" aspirations, might test the suspension of disbelief for some viewers.
Yet, these are quibbles against the film’s overwhelming emotional resonance. Leung’s direction, especially for a debut feature, is remarkably assured. Leung understands the power of silence, the weight of a glance, the way unspoken history hangs thick in the air between characters across decades. Leung trusts his actors to convey volumes without exposition, and they repay that trust tenfold. The film’s ultimate power lies not in narrative trickery, but in its raw examination of regret – not as a passive state, but as an active, gnawing presence. Sing-wah’s journey isn't about preventing the unpreventable; it’s about “understanding” it. It’s about finally seeing the love he took for granted, the pain he caused, and finding a way, however bittersweet, to make peace with the ghost that has defined his life.
In conclusion, “Last Song for You” is a deeply affecting, beautifully performed meditation on love, loss, and the enduring echoes of our choices. It’s a film that asks if true healing comes from changing the past or simply from finally facing it with open eyes and a broken heart. While its structure occasionally falters and its tone embraces sentimentality, its emotional core is unassailable. Natalie Hsu delivers a performance of luminous grace, and Ekin Cheng carries the film’s profound sorrow with a dignity that is heartbreaking. Jill Leung Lai-yin announces himself as a significant new voice in Hong Kong cinema, one unafraid to explore the tender, messy chambers of the human heart. It leaves you, much like a lingering melody, with a profound sense of catharsis and a quiet ache for the roads not taken, the loves not held tightly enough. It’s a song worth hearing, a story worth feeling. (Neo, 2025)
20th Neo Hong Kong Film Awards 2024
Winner of Best Original Song
Neo’s Recommended Film List of 2024