Christmas Rose
Charlie Young
The story: Public prosecutor Tim (Aaron Kwok) takes on an explosive case in which handicapped piano teacher Jing (Guey Lun-mei) accuses well-known doctor Zhou (Chang Chen) of molesting her during a medical check-up. It all hinges upon their contrasting testimonies as Jing and Zhou were the only two people in the room at the time.

How do we know what we know? How can we be sure of what we know?
Two movies opening here this week, Christmas Rose and military drama Emperor, explore the idea of the slippery nature of truth and, given that, how and whether we can determine guilt.
The stakes are higher in Emperor as the fate of post-war Japan hangs in the balance and the issues are handled with a lighter touch. Actress-turned-director Charlie Young tackles the same issues with a heavier hand in Rose.
Her legal drama’s he-said she-said set-up calls to mind David Mamet’s play Oleanna (1992), in which a male professor and his female student tangle over a charge of sexual exploitation.
It is no easy task to have audience sympathy shifting one way then the other, depending on who is holding court at the moment. While you do get tugged this way and that in Rose, it also feels quite manipulative in part due to Young’s penchant for close-ups and zoom-ins.
Guey’s Jing appears at first to be a defenceless young woman who falls prey to a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but the film is overly skewed towards her and it is not till much later that we get to hear Zhou’s conflicting version of events.
The verdict is revealed an hour into the film and the last act is essentially one shouty, teary revelation after another. It is meant to be cathartic, but instead feels mildly farcical as court proceedings are turned into a mass therapy session. For an effective court melodrama, watch Deannie Yip and Andy Lau in The Unwritten Law (1985) instead.
The cast of heavyweight stars here also means that plotlines have to be spread around, not necessarily to the film’s benefit.
Kwok’s Tim has a backstory that dovetails with the case, but it does not fully resonate and his half-hearted rivalry with the defence lawyer (Xia Yu) is mostly a distracting sideshow.
Tim even has an emotional breakdown scene over his father, but instead of being moving, the tears feel like they are merely award-baiting.
It is an ambitious project for a first- time director but, unfortunately, Christmas Rose is an unseasonal bloom that fails to fully blossom.
(ST)