nos·tal·gi·a ( P ) (n-stlj, n-)n.
A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past. (Dictionary.com)


Feeling slightly richer than before after depositing my ang pow money, I proceeded to Sembawang Music to check out the CDs (hey, it's my free day hor). Came across this Greatest Hits collection of Jeff Chang's songs, released in 2000. Bought it, and was treated to an earful of wonderful songs that I loved as a raw youngster, songs that I only managed to hear on radio cos I didn't yet have that spending power to purchase any audio tapes, not to mention CDs. This is a collection of Jeff Chang's songs that he released before he moved from BMG to Rock Records, after which he became very popular in and outside Taiwan with that hit 'Don't Tell Him' (不要對他說). Beautiful nostalgic feeling...

Later in the afternoon, was surfing channels when an image caught my eye... It was a scene showing a silhouette of 2 boys on a beach against the backdrop of the sunset. An old film, definitely, judging from the quality of the picture. It didn't strike me as being familiar or anything but somehow I was drawn to it. I watched on and by the next scene, the movie that I was watching became clear to me - Alan & Eric - Between Hello & Goodbye (双城故事), a 1991 movie starring Alan Tam, Eric Tseng and Maggie Cheung.

This has always been a memorable movie, from since the first time I watched it until now. Even though it has been more than 10 years since its release, watching it now still brings tears to the eyes. It's an evergreen storyline of how 3 friends found one another, lost themselves to the world, and reunited in a touching moment only to realise that things would never be the same anymore. Sure, it has one of the protagonist turning into a successful popstar (Alan Tam mirroring in own life. What's more interesting, is that both Eric Tseng and Alan Tam retain their own names in the movie), but the underlying theme is something everyone can relate to... friendship, dreams and time. The characters are also brought to life by the excellent portrayal of the leads - the scene where Alan finally meets Maggie and Eric after 10 years of seperation was one of the most touching tear-jerkers in Chinese movie history... Actually, even though I felt that Alan was overacting at some points, it somehow all fitted in, making his character believable. Eric was very affecting and truely deserved his Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for this show. Watching so much of him in variety shows like Super Trio, I actually almost forgot that he's also a very good actor. As for Maggie Cheung, what else is there to say? She looked so beautiful in there and gave a wonderful performance.

In fact, I even fell in love with the song, Moonriver, because of this movie. They don't make movies of that kind of sincerity and soul anymore.

A day of nostalgic feelings. I'm definitely getting old. But I love that feeling, anyhow.

Back to my Jeff Chang CD.