Watched Wait’ Til You’re Older (童夢奇緣) today. You can watch the trailer here. At first I didn’t think much of this movie. Seemed like another movie to waste my time on. Only reason I’d watch it was because Andy Lau was in it and that I happened to get ahold of a Cantonese version. However, the movie turned out to quite a surprise. It basically involved a kid who wouldn’t forgive his father and wanted to grow up faster. However, many stuff left unsaid creates a wonderful story I’d recommend that you’d see.
Spoilers:
The story starts off with a little boy hating his father. At first you learn that his current mom is his stepmother and sometime later on you find out that the mom actually suicided and he’s blamed his father and his stepmother ever since. This little boy was especially naughty, running away from home a few times every week. He would go back to the old house and hide there and await for his father to come. He demanded that either he bring back mom or pay him HK$300. He was collecting money so he could one day run away for good.
However, one day, the stepmother got so pissed with the shenanigans, that she actually threw him outta the house. At this point, he meets an old man in the park which claims he’s invented a potion that’ll allow things (including humans) to grow up faster. The man wouldn’t give it to the boy, so the boy ends up stealing it. Immediately the next day, he grows up to become a 20yr old man. There was a side story with him trying to date his teacher and him helping out his friend, but that wasn’t too important to the plot.
Later on, he actually gets to see the other side of his father. Since the father didn’t know he had grown up, so he was able to talk to him about things that he’d never tell his son. During a flashblack, you learnt that the son and mom actually both tried to commit suicide by eating a poisonous cake. However, doctors were able to save the boy, but not the mom. The more he hung out with his father, the better he thought of him and really wanted to apologize for hurting him so much. One thing to note, is that the potion wasn’t a one time deal. He was growing at a rapid rate. By the 3rd or 4th day, he was already getting white hair. One time, the father brought back this older version of his son for dinner and he starts provoking his stepmother, asking why she was the third wheel in the relationship. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Suddenly, the mother cracks and starts blurbing out the truth. It turns out this boy’s real mom was a mistress, and his father was long married to this woman before meeting his mom. The mother couldn’t stand sharing this man with another woman, so she decided to kill herself, along with her son. However, since the son survived, the only thing the father could do was to bring him into his current family. However, because the son never knew the truth and because the father didn’t want him to know the truth and ruin the image of his mother, the boy was always angry at the wrong thing. After learning this, he wanted to become small again and rushed to the old man in the park. There he begged him to give him the potion to make him smaller. The old man says, “There is no such potion, but it’s never too late. Spend the remainder of your time wisely, and you won’t regret your life.” He tells his father the truth and even manages to bring the family back together by apologizing to his stepmother for his mother. The ending was a bit weird. I was really expecting him to wake up from a dream…, but the credits just started to roll up.