And this unfortunately continued into the final act where the children take off into a journey to the woods in search of the wooden lodge of Mei's grandfather, giving rise to countless of opportunities where we can journey with the kids and drown in the magnitude of their combined imagination. Alas the direction here became a little bit lazy, with proceedings almost being rote on screen, lacking real and strong emotions to hook you into the story and feel for the characters' connection with each other. They form a fast friendship especially since Jay becomes the pushover by bullies in school, and Mei moves from one emotional crutch that her parents no longer can fulfill, to that of young love with the presence of Jay, culminating in the expectation that the two kids will inevitably form bonds that are stronger than just plain platonic friendship. Jay (newcomer Eric Lin Hui Ming) is that real artistic kid with the penchant for nude drawings, music and just about all things wonderful to Mei. That is until the next segment of the story where she gets smitten with the new kid on the block who happens to be in the same class.

In some ways her imagination coming alive almost boasts of being Gondry-ish in execution, with famous watercolour paintings coming alive to fill the landscapes Mei lives in, and objects in her everyday life such as animal origami crafts and wood carvings all taking a Toy Story turn to accompany the lonely heart in her, pushing the boundaries as much as her imagination could carry. We see how the strong family nucleus break down in a montage sequence, and that alone allows the suggestion that Mei is that kid who has withdrawn into her own private world where fantasy becomes reality, and allows for plenty of CG creations to be put on screen for that wow factor. Her parents are incessantly arguing and are mulling over a divorce, with the cracks showing since Mom is increasingly disconnected from the real world, opting instead in aspiring to be French, through song, dance and plenty of wine. The story is broadly split into the three act structure, the first which deals with the relationship between Mei (Xu Jiao, also known as Josie now), her parents (played by Harlem Yu and Rene Liu), and her grandfather (Kenneth Tsang) with whom she is the closest to, having been making wonderful wooden animal doll carvings for her to lift her spirits.

Directed by Tom Lin, Starry Starry Night comes hot off the heels of successful Taiwanese films and had promise of a deeply emotional film about first love, if not for precisely that which is found to be wanting and missing, where its technical strengths far outstrips its narrative merits, which is a pity. Xu Jiao burst onto the entertainment scene thanks to Stephen Chow casting her as his son in the CG comedy CJ7, and now as a teenager this marks her first venture into the teenage romantic genre as a girl who's at the cusp of teenagedom, where life is at a crossroads and everything good seems to be falling apart.

Starry night screen