Kearen Pang adapts her popular stage show for the screen, following two women on the verge of turning 30…
The multi-talented actress, stage producer and writer Kearen Pang brings her popular one-person play 29+1 to the screen, making her debut as a director in the process, having toured the show from 2005 to 2013 to acclaim in Hong Kong, Beijing and Macau. Starring Chrissie Chau (Break Up 100) and Joyce Cheng (Special Female Force), the film is a bittersweet drama following the experiences of two very different women as they approach the daunting prospect of turning thirty, and had its premiere at the Osaka Asian Film Festival where it won the Audience Award, before going on to win Best Director of a Foreign Language Feature Film at the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema in Nice.
Set in 2005, the film opens with Chrissie Chau as Christy, a marketing executive who seems to be doing very well in her life, enjoying a successful career and in a long-term relationship with a caring boyfriend (Benjamin Yeung, Three). Things change when she is kicked out of her apartment by her landlord, and with her 30th birthday fast approaching has to re-evaluate her future, facing up to a series of difficulties and challenges. By chance, she moves into an apartment previously inhabited by Tin Lok (Joyce Cheng), who was born on the same day as her, and who decided to fulfil her lifelong dream of travelling the world with her best friend (Babyjohn Choi, Vampire Cleanup Department). A cheerful soul, undeterred by her lack of a career or boyfriend, Lok seems a very different woman indeed, though after Christy finds and reads her diary, their lives and experiences begin to intertwine.
It’s fitting that it’s Kearen Pang herself who has adapted 29+1 for the screen, as it’s clearly a very personal work, and one which feels refreshingly genuine, much more so than other similarly themed offerings. Though the themes dealt with are nothing new, the film covering life, love, relationships, friendship and the harsh fact that maturity usually means learning to deal with disappointment, Pang does a great job of making the film realistic and believable, and ensuring that its target audience will be able to relate to the characters and their experiences. The film is engaging and moving as a result, and while there are a few unnecessary sermon-like speeches – likely a hangover from the original stage version – and some fourth wall-breaking scenes of Christy addressing the camera and fantasy inserts don’t really fit, it all hangs together well. Partly this is down to Pang’s sharp and grounded script, which does somewhat recall the style of Pang Ho-cheung (Pang featured in his Vulgaria as well as writing Isabella), working in some observational comedy along with the character development.
What really gives the film a boost is the two fine lead performances from Chrissie Chau and Joyce Cheng – Pang played both roles in the stage play, which would have been less likely to work on the screen. Chau has come a long way as an actress over the last few years, and she manages to make Christy flawed but essentially likeable, and a more complex figure than those who often turn up in life lesson-heavy dramas of the type. Joyce Cheng is similarly charismatic, and though Tin Lok could potentially have been much more one-note and used mainly as a free-spirited counterpart to Christy, she adds depth to the role as well as a light-hearted sense of fun.
While probably none of this is going to convince audiences outside the demographic of female-themed life dramas, 29+1 has a lot going for it, and should certainly be enjoyed by fans of the form. Helped by Chrissie Chau and Joyce Cheng’s winning turns and Kearen Pang’s multi-layered script and heartfelt approach, it’s a film which succeeds in its modest ambitions, and which for the most part successfully navigates the tricky task of transplanting a stage play to the screen.