A Balloon’s Landing Review: Visuals Soar, Plot Runs Aground
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“In 2003, Leslie Cheung passed away, so did my parents…“
Gotta love how Taiwanese film “A Balloon’s Landing” (original title: Wo zai zhe li deng ni) pays an ode to acting legend and queer icon Leslie Cheung. That said, the 2024 romance directed by Angel Ihan Teng, falls pretty short in terms of storytelling & execution, despite stunning cinematography, and charming lead actors.
The plot follows popular Hong Kong author Gu Tian Yu (Terrance Lau) who is mired in controversy due to plagiarism accusations by another writer. Overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and despair, Tian Yu plans on making a trip to Taiwan, to find the ‘bay of whales’, that a pen-friend used to write to him about. In Taiwan, Tian Yu runs into small-time thug Jin Run Fa (Fandy Fan), who promises to take him to the ‘bay of whales’. Unsure if the goon really knows the place or is simply trying to fleece him, Tian Yu lets the cheery Run Fa becomes his guide, and the two travel together over days, bonding unexpectedly over little misadventures and fights.
While the first half of A Balloon’s Landing is intriguing and entertaining, its slow-burn pace keeps you wondering if it really is a romance movie. The answer is: not really. It delves more into themes of friendship, and that’s what it really should’ve been about—two men bonding on a platonic level—because the romance is extremely thin. The successful author Tian Yu and poor thug Jin Run Fa work better as two men from clashing worlds, sharing a bumpy road trip together. There’s also unexpected magical realism in the tale and a heartwarming subplot about how Tian Yu communicates through letters with a young boy. It’s these letters that help him through difficult phases of his life. For the young boy, too, Tian Yu’s letters are a lifeline, a source of hope and inspiration. How their paths cross unexpectedly is very contrived in the movie.
Unlike the Taiwanese romantic movie , where a lot of angst, despair, and tragedy experienced by its lead male pair was justified, “A Balloon’s Landing” feels unnecessarily tragic. It’s also needlessly cryptic about the sexuality of its protagonists, rarely giving us honest emotional moments between the leads. For most of its runtime, it plays out as a joyous road-trip story, only to throw in a violent twist that feels forced and manipulative rather than natural. Fortunately, the magical-realism element saves the climax, offering an intriguing twist that leaves Tian Yu and Jin Run Fa’s story open-ended. Still, by the end, I couldn’t help but feel cheated—this wasn’t the dramatic romance the trailer had promised. The film squanders its magical potential to deliver a memorable love story, though its visual appeal might make it worth a one-time watch.
Rating: 5 on 10. You can watch “A Balloon’s Landing” on Netflix.
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