Love Conquers All

An innocent, pleasant, and rather passive girl from Penang arrives by bus in Kuala Lumpur, where she has come to live with relatives. A man sees her at a phone booth and sets about trying to win her. The mystery of the man gives Love Conquers All its suspense.

Is he just a playboy? Is he a tough guy with a good heart? Or is he a heartless, vicious manipulator? The viewers know no more than the heroine does, and she knows nothing about this man except what he tells her and what she sees. So this excellent film becomes a subtle study in watching and reading behavior, leading viewers to reevaluate stereotypes of predatory men and victimized women.

In one scene, the man tells the heroine how his cousin, a pimp, entraps and corrupts young women. Does this account lay out, step by step, the path the heroine will follow? And does she suspect this even as she listens? These questions haunt the rest of the film, putting both the characters and the viewers under a spell of fascination and dread.

From the beginning (a strange scene involving a seemingly incapacitated passenger on the bus) to the end (which confirms the title in all its ambiguity), director Tan Chui Mui observes her people and their world with calm directness. She has the gift of creating spare, relaxed compositions that evoke what lies outside the frame, behind the faces. Tan is confident enough to end Love Conquers All (her first feature) with many questions still open - questions not just about the characters' fates but about their way of life, their identities as men and women, and the nature of love. No doubt her future work will further probe such questions.

(2006/10/24)

-Chris Fujiwara was FIPRESCI juror for Pusan International Film Festival 2006. He is an internationally known critic from Boston, now residing in Japan.

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