Zhou Xun takes on 'tough' role
周迅的爱情猜想 作者：CHARLIE SHIFFLETT, 21ST CENTUR 时间：2008-10-01
来源：21世纪英文报第773期
aficionado狂热爱好者
ardent热情的
baffling令人困惑的ballad歌谣
barometer晴雨表
bohemian不羁的
buckle up 系紧安全带
die-hard 狂热的
dimension因素
emulate仿效
epic史诗
equation平衡
foothold立足处
hiatus空隙
jangling刺激
lapse间隔
melancholy忧郁
melodrama情景剧
nuance细微差别
in the cards 确定的
paparazzi狗仔队
resonate共鸣
sitcom 情景剧
stoic高度自制者
MOVIEGOERS will want to buckle up for the wild ride Zhou Xun gives them in her latest film, An Equation of Love and Death. At its heart, Equation is a fast-paced, missing-person story that begins and ends near a highway overpass.
Zhou plays a melancholy taxi driver named Li Mi, who has been waiting for her boyfriend’s return for four years. She carries in her car an album of pictures taped to a magazine, which she shows to customers in hope that they will recognize her boyfriend.
When they don’t, she is left to drive around the city, calculating the days it has been since she last heard from him.
Missing-person stories don’t work unless the audience care about the people in them. Fortunately, Equation has a strong cast of characters, each of whom adds dimension to the story.
Strong cast
For instance, I will not soon forget the innocent grin of the young “country bumpkin” named Shui Tian (Wang Baoqiang). After Li Mi picks him up with his abusive companion, we learn that he has come to the city, in part, to look for his girlfriend.
There is also the stoic policeman who takes it upon himself to help Li Mi and the mysterious man that Li Mi believes to be her missing boyfriend.
At the center of this movie is, of course, Li Mi. As the movie opens, the young woman appears to be half-mad. She sits behind the steering wheel, idling in traffic and reciting a list of numbers that seem to have no relationship with each other.
When Li Mi jokingly asks Shui Tian what he makes of them, he replies seriously that they all include the digit “2”.
Long wait
Li Mi laughs, perhaps because for so long now she has been “1” – one lonely girl waiting for the return of her man. This waiting has hardened her and forced her to make her own way on the busy urban roads.
But when she crosses paths with a man who resembles her boyfriend, her hardness turns to hope. Zhou conveys this transformation skillfully and believably.
More importantly though, Zhou’s performance breathes life into a world we seldom think about. In cars and taxis and buses, stories are constantly being played out.
People with their faces pressed up against a window are looking for someone, or longing for something. They have dreams, disappointments and desperation.
Zhou’s story is just one of many in which people are trying to solve the toughest equations of them all – love and death.
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