apples of gold in settings of silver

As Time Goes By

I watched Wait Til You're Older at the Singapore Island Country Club today with my parents and my brother. A short plot synopsis: Kwong is an unhappy child whose mother committed suicide 3 years ago. Soon after, his father married an evil stepmother (Karen Mok). Kwong hates his life and can't wait for the day when he saves up enough money to leave home for good. One day, he meets a quirky old man with a potion that accelerates the natural aging process. Kwong steals some, and matures overnight into... Andy Lau! Right, you might be thinking, another Big type fantasy. However, the movie was not nearly that escapist. There are a few fish-out-of-water or grown-up-fantasy joke set pieces, but overall the theme that the movie powerfully conveyed is that everyone makes mistakes, and you can't ever go back into the past to change it, because time marches inexorably on. Because Andy Lau overdosed on the potion, he ages 20 years overnight, and by the 4th day, he looks like a decrepit, 80 year old man. He's learned a lot in those 4 days, and he wants to go back to where he was, to be a good son to his father and stepmother, but he can't. Time moves on, and it can't be magicked away. Such a true thing, yet very few people really live each moment for all its worth, and too many look back to their past mistakes, past pleasures, past glories (secondary school reminisces anyone???) without looking forward to the hope of creating an even better future. I'm guilty of that as well. Some of my most painful moments come when I think how good things were back *insert appropriate year*, or when I think about what could have been different if I'd just chosen differently xxx years ago. But the past is really past. Nothing I do now can change what I did then. But what I do now, and what I think now, can change the person I'll be in the future. It's so hard to write about this without being maudlin. But the fact is I'm still having a hard time letting go of the past, especially the good memories. And like Kwong, the naughty boy, I regret the bad things I have done and wish I could turn back time so I could have a second chance to avoid them. But the message of the movie isn't to avoid mistakes, because the very idea is laughably impossible. As my dad summarized, the lesson of the movie is - if you make a mistake, don't make the further mistake of wasting even more time avoiding the consequences, or regretting the mistake. Quickly rectify it and make it better. Because there's little that's more tragic than wasting the minutes and hours that make up a life.

posted by Puz @ 1:27 AM