Forris Day Jr.
The romantic drama “Lost For Words” is an interesting take on a romantic film. It has a Romeo and Juliet theme going on when an American Ex-Marine Michael Vance (Sean Faris) falls in love with a Chinese ballerina Anna Zhou (Grace Huang). Although the description of the film says “mounting political and cultural pressures threaten to tear them apart” I didn’t see this mounting pressure happen in the film. Sure there were a couple scenes where cultural things got in the way such as when he meets Anna’s grandfather who is angry about a war injury he received in the Korean War from an American artillery shell . A good scene but there wasn’t a sense of foreboding. It just kind of happened. Same thing about the political pressure. No foreboding, it too just kind of happened in one scene.
A very slow moving story that never really grabbed my interest. It went much longer than it needed to and has many unnecessary scenes that added nothing to the story. It’s painfully long so for that I can’t recommend this film.
On the good side, the acting is top notch. The actors were cast well and they pull off their respective parts flawlessly. They are believable and turn an otherwise terrible movie into a watchable film. I was familiar with Sean Faris from his Hallmark movie “Christmas With Holly” and knew I liked him, so seeing him in this kept me watching. I had never seen Grace Huang before and I thought she was a shining light in this film. She really made me want to follow her story of becoming a great dancer and perhaps this storyline would have made a better relationship conflict in the story than “Mounting political and cultural pressures”.
The cinematography was nothing less than awesome. The sweeping cityscape shots of Hong Kong were beautiful. The locations were amazing and also helped keep me watching the movie. The cameras captured the pleasing colors of the city making a spectacular backdrop that is not seen in most films. Lots of aerial shots keep things interesting but again there still needs to be a solid story to keep the viewer wanting to watch.
In short “Lost For Words” has a weak story that borders on mundane but visually it is a treat to the eyes. The talented cast did the best that they could do with a story that has little action and is lacking in any kind of major conflict. I think the story may have gotten lost in the attempt to include all the great camera shots and aerial shots of the city. These almost seemed more important than the story. It’s not the worst movie I have ever seen but it’s far from the best.
Rating: 3.5/10 – “Lost For Storyline”