Blue Gate Crossing

Zhang (Bo-lin Chen) is one schoolkid who knows his selling points. So he isn’t too surprised at the attention when Meng Kerou (Lun-mei Guey) approaches him on behalf of her smitten best friend Lin Yuezhen (Shu-hui Liang), who keeps a box full of his discarded bits and plasters his name all over her schoolbooks. Zhang, though, is more impressed by the unbendable Meng, who, thinking she might be gay, has taken to scrawling ‘I’m a girl, I love boys’ in the sand. Tender, slight and slender, this lilting coming-of-age tale stretches a thin skin of activity over its skeletal plot, prefering to focus on the hearts and souls of its teenage protagonists. A sweet and understated counterpoint to the usual teenage hyperbole.