Noob Film Review - THE GARDEN OF THE EVENING MISTS by Tom Shu-Yu Lin

The story of Yu Ling (Angelica Lee) who lost her sister during the Japanese invasion of Malaya. She wants to commemorate her sister’s passion of Japanese garden by building one. To learn to do it, she has been pointed to Nakamura Arimoto (Hiroshi Abe) in his isolated garden up in Cameron Highlands.

The story revolves around 3 timelines. Yu Ling in the 1980s, during the Japanese occupation of Malaya and during the Malayan Emergency.

The aged Yu Ling who is a judge trying to solve a case which has brought her back to Cameron Highlands. Flashbacks reveals the pieces one by one, which brings Yu Ling to the meaning the time she spent with Arimoto, which is about ‘borrowed time’

The Japanese in Aritomo is not the kind of hostile Japanese that Yu Ling encountered during their occupation. Aritomo instead chose a spiritual isolation in the highlands of Cameron for disagreeing with the war, even its meaning betraying the Emperor.
Chopin : the impression of someone gently looking at a spot, that brings to mind a thousand of happy memories.
The irony Japan in WWII, a warring nation being spiritual at the same time with their gardens. Aritomo is not a hypocrite as such.

The horror of the Japanese occupation in Malaya is shown. What is also shown is the phantom colonization of the British Empire through music, fashion and language, legal and constitutional. Putting most of them as conditions to the ‘independence’ of Malaya.

‘The doorway shot’. The refusal to be involved in the savagery in ‘The Searchers’. As Arimoto and the Japanese WWII atrocity in Malaya?
Even the Emperor wants a tennis court in the Royal Garden.

Yu Ling is as precious to Arimoto as the mythical treasure of Yamashita. One which is found and another one can never be found. How time is spent seeking the wrong thing.

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