Somewhere Only We Know (2015)

The Beatles' once wrote a song called "There's A Place" that says, "There's a place, / Where I can go / When I feel low, / When I feel blue...". There are always those places we go when we are sad, places where we can look for a new life, try new things, and meet new people. That is what Somewhere Only We Know is about. It's about finding a place to become new, to build new meaning to one's life and to one's love.

The story is simple, but surprisingly compelling. We see Jin Tian's (Wang Likun) journey to a place, to Prague. At first, it is just a beautiful city meant to help her heal; it's a city that her only family member once lived. Later, though, and interwoven with her own love story, Prague becomes that place of being and becoming a new person. What I enjoyed most is how interwoven Jin Tian and Ze Yang's story was with Lan Xin and Dr. Novak's. The links and flashbacks gave a beautiful, yet sorrowful meaning to the idea of having a place and of being in love.

Despite a group of young, fairly inexperienced actors, Somewhere Only We Know featured bright moments. The chemistry between Wang Likun (Jin Tian) and Wu Yi Fan (Ze Yang) was sweet; their interactions with Sophia (Ni Ni) were definite highlights of the film. Moreover, they showed an awkwardness that fit well with two young people in love. Plus, the movie showcased Wu Yi Fan's ability to be a "cold guy," a nice guy, a sweet guy, and best of all, a silly guy. Xu Jinglei took a major risk, and I believe it paid off. Last but not least, Xu Jinglei was awesome herself as the young Lan Xin. She gave off a grace and beauty that brought me to tears at its sincerity.

I loved the music in the film! From traditional Czech music to Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" to Wu Yi Fan's "There Is A Place," the music captured that sweetness of new love, of old love, of lost love, and of found love.

Probably my only complaint with the movie lies in it's use of English instead of Czech when there are longer conversations with non-Chinese characters (Dr. Novak, especially). I don't hate the choice necessarily, but I would have liked there to be more Czech involved in the film.

Of course I'm going to rewatch this again and again. It's sweet, funny, yet also insightful. On a fangirl note, why wouldn't I watch it again?

Overall, I give Somewhere Only We Know a 10 because I enjoyed the film so much. I laughed and cried (I dabbed tears at several points during the film), and I thoroughly felt the love between the characters. I also enjoyed seeing the beauty of Prague; I really, really want to visit it now. It gave a wonderful environment and air to encase the beautiful stories within the film. The film made me want to find my own place as well.

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I really enjoyed this film. I have not watched many Chinese movies so I can't really compare it to other movies, except Back to 20s the Chinese Remake of the Korean Movie Miss Granny. As you can probably tell from my statement, yes, I was watching this movie for Wu Yi Fan, as I was watching Back to 20s for Lu Han, but, that does not mean I only enjoyed the movie because of him. It was a very nice sweet movie in general and I loved the fact that we did not have to dwell on the romance the whole time. I was able to enjoy both the movie backdrop story and their romance. It was very interesting and there were not any parts I need to cut out or skip.

The music for this film I was looking forward to in this film but, even though Wu Yi Fan wrote one of the songs, called "There is a Place for Us", we did not even hear that whole song in the film, and I think it was placed in the wrong place. But, other than that, the music was okay. It might have been also because I don't even associate this song with this film at all. Infact, I assume if I never had heard this song before I would have missed this song. It would have not stood out as a great song but, only as part of an okay soundtrack.

The acting and cast was very well done. I especially enjoyed Sophia Cai Shuya and her performance as Ni Ni, the daughter. She was very cute and I loved her moments with Wu Yi Fan as father and daughter.

I want to thank the director and all the other crew that made this movie possible. I advise anyone to watch this movie, I think most people will enjoy it.

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