Movie Review: At Cafe 6《六弄咖啡館》

Image credit: At Cafe 6 Official Facebook page

Movie synopsis
Miss Liang’s car broke down after work in a rainy night. The coffee shop owner helps her and invites her to his shop named Café 6. When he knows Miss Liang has a fight with her boyfriend that is overseas, he shares the story that happened in the summer of 1996…

At that time, Guan Min-lu and his good friend Xiao Bo-zhi always hang out together. Min-lu is secretly in love with Li Xin-rui. And Bo-zhi likes Xin-rui’s best friend, Cai Xin-yi. They share the shining young days together. However, they need to face reality, can they maintain their friendship after their high school graduation?

那是个下着雨的夜晚，男子撑伞外出，却见到一名女子全身湿透，无助地蹲坐路边，看着抛锚的车哭泣，他带着她来到自己尚未开幕的咖啡店里躲雨休息，得知梁小姐（张榕容饰演）正与远距离恋爱的男友吵架冷战后，这位咖啡店老板（戴立忍饰演）泡了杯不太甜的热卡布奇诺，向梁小姐娓娓道来自己年轻时遭遇过的相似经历。

那年是1996年，高三的关闵绿（董子健饰演）和同学兼死党萧柏智（林柏宏饰演）总玩在一起，小绿偷偷单恋着品学兼优的同班同学李心蕊（颜卓灵饰演），但她的身边总有恰北北的蔡心怡（欧阳妮妮饰演）常伴左右，让他只能偷偷把这份心意藏在心底，萧柏智其实也对蔡心怡有好感，于是两人约好相互支援，目的是要帮对方把女孩追到手，只是目的还没达成，却发现同班的宋依人（宋伊人饰演）也单恋着小绿…。

升上大学后，大家各自四散到不同地方念书，纵使毕业前大声呐喊「友谊长存」、「我与妳同在」，但是友情和爱情，是否能不因时间和距离的拉远而改变？咖啡店老板在雨夜中，和梁小姐娓娓道来的这段故事，是否能迎接皆大欢喜的快乐结局？而这段尘封往事背后，似乎还有更多老板没说出口的，与这座地址不在六弄，却名为「六弄咖啡馆」的咖啡店有着密切关联。

从初恋到热恋，两个死党会继续耍北烂面对情场对手或者失恋？耍北七捉弄的年少、初恋的坚定承诺、生死不弃的友谊是否将继续闪耀光芒，照映他们迈向世故的人生旅途？

Directed by: Neal Wu (aka Hiyawu) 吳子雲 (藤井樹)

Starring:
Dong Zijian 董子健,
Cherry Ngan 颜卓灵,
Nini Ou-yang 欧阳妮妮,
Po-Hung Lin 林柏宏,
Leon Dai 戴立忍,
Sandrine Pinna 張榕容,
Mickey Huang 黃子佼

In Cinemas (Singapore): 14th July 2016

Genre: Romance, Comedy

Language: In Mandarin with English and Chinese subtitles

Runtime: 102 mins

Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language 些许粗俗语言)

Movie trailer

Review
Was expecting another youth romance movie with similar context as “The apple of my eye”, much to my surprise, I feel so emotional after finishing the show. Sad not just simply feel touched over the long distance relationship, or falling out of love, it’s about reality of life. In real life, how many couples are in the same situation – one is staying at the same place while the other party had already progress and move on towards another direction? I’ve seen so many such couple and usually this is the main reason why their relationship failed. No matter how much effort you put into the relationship, no matter how much you treasure the relationship, there is always something else that keep a relationship continuing….

The show also remind us that in life, other than love relationship, we shall not neglect other aspects in our life – kinship, studies, friendship.

看完了电影，我立即上网搜索“六弄咖啡館全文”。原篇与电影有点不同，但也许因为导演是原著作者，电影还是把故事精髓表达出来了。我是忍住泪把戏看完了，可是同排有好几人在落幕后手上还握着纸巾。感人程度90%。

电影开始前，女主角颜卓灵悄悄地暗示我们这不只是一部爱情片，它是一部代表了人生的影片 – 电影结束后，我终于了解了她为什么这么说。一段感情并不是只靠努力就可以维持下去的，在你追逐感情的同时，别忽略了你身边的亲人与朋友。而且，感情不是人生的一切，太过执着，只会以遗憾收场。

Listening to the theme song of this movie, it’s not hard for you to guess who sang this. Yes, it’s sang by Singapore’s Stefanie Sun! The lyrics of the song is written by the director-cum-author of same titled novel, Neal Wu! Like the song and I feel that it really suits the story well:
有些从前太执念那痕迹太明显
而故事被遗憾画上了重点