LAFF 2015: IT’S ALREADY TOMORROW IN HONG KONG — A Genuine Romance
by Alex Williams
The romantic international walk-and-talk is a genre practically invented by Richard Linkater’s Before trilogy, which mastered the art of sprawling but intimate conversation so perfectly that imitators were bound to pop up. It’s Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong certainly owes those films a debt, but it’s fairly engaging on its own terms and writer/director Emily Ting finds some new tensions to wring out of the genre.
Josh (Bryan Greenberg) and Ruby (Jamie Chung) meet by chance outside of a Hong Kong bar one night; she’s looking for the friends she’s in town to visit, and he’s an ex-pat, living and working in the city. He offers to walk her to her next destination, and sparks fly right off the bat. Of course, the other shoe drops in the form of a personal revelation, leading to unexpected complications.
I’m being intentionally vague here, because the distinct pleasures of It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong come from the film’s apt ability to subvert what you’d expect from this sort of story, and there are genuine surprises to be found here. While many of the dramatic reveals are obvious and unoriginal, the film never pretends they’re not, keeping the external drama low-key and letting the tension of the story come from the irresistible chemistry that builds between Ruby and Josh.
Greenberg is hugely charming as Josh, and though he’s never quite broken through to genuine stardom, he proves here that he’s a wholly capable romantic lead. Meanwhile, Chung comes off a bit more theatrical, but she brings enough personality to the role that Ruby is a fully-formed and interesting character, rather than the Manic Pixie Dream Girl she could have been in lesser hands.
It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong is just as much a travelogue as it is a romance, showcasing the vivid pleasures of the city in loving detail. The script is great at sweeping us up in the playful romantic tension between our leads, playing a smart game with our sympathies and finding surprising tensions between the complacent Josh and the challenging Ruby. When their conversation becomes particularly ambling or tense, the script finds a way to inject some energy into the proceedings, most memorably in a funny interlude with a fortune teller.
Sadly, the final moments in It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong are by far the least cinematic, ending a series of beautifully realized conversations between our leads in the backseat of a cab. It’s in this painfully inconclusive ending that Ting owes her biggest date to Linklater’s films, which nail the romantic ambiguity this film grasps for. However, at a brisk 79 minutes, the film instead feels like it’s missing a third act, a common problem with festival films.
Despite stumbling at the end, It’s Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong is an effective work, genuinely romantic and consistently entertaining. The chemistry between the leads is tangible and easy to invest in thanks to a sharp script from Emily Ting and the skilled Bryan Greenberg and Jamie Chung delivering it with plentiful chemistry and soul.
