Blue Gate Crossing review

Vaporous as it first seems, Chin-yen Yee's Taiwanese teen menage-a-trois tale is a winning, sweet and subtle film that captures the slippery nature of young crushes as if filtered through memory.

It focuses on a young girl, Meng Kerou (Lun-mei Guey) as she tries to woo sporty Zhang Shihao (Bo-lin Chen) on behalf of her friend, shy Lin Yuezhen (Shu-hui Liang). Of course, complications follow: Zhang falls for Kerou, who's nurturing a crush on Yuezhen...

This latter theme, though, barely develops on screen, making the film a mood piece rather than a typical coming-out drama. As such, events don't pan out as expected, developing instead through tactful observation into a melancholic tale of how you can't always get what you want. It's all a little too slender for its own good, but as the clever closing shot suggests, its appeal lies in recognising that everyone's been there and learned to let it go.