It’s an odd post to write when my initial acting impression of two familiar leads turns out to be flipped around. Perhaps the teaser trailer was cut in a certain way to see famous flower vase C-actress Crystal Liu majorly out-acting her male lead K-actor Rain in their upcoming melo C-movie For Love or Money. The Chinese title is 露水紅顏 which is a poetic saying that female beauty is comparable to morning dew and is the title of a popular C-novel that is getting the big screen adaptation treatment in the hands of Chinese director Gao Xi Xi. Getting Rain and Crystal to star is a nice coup in the looks department but I seriously thought Crystal would just pose there blankly as she always does while Rain acts circles around her. The first teaser trailer released last week tosses that preconception out the window as Crystal lights the screen on fire with both her otherworldly beauty and a fiery rawness I’ve not seen from her. Where has this Crystal been all these years?

If a switch flipped recently in her acting life then all I can say is better late than never. Rain, on the other hand, is acting like he’s in a K-drama melo which means prolonged expression holding and eye bulging like he is used to the camera being trained on him for an end of the episode freeze frame moment. I know he’s better than the glimpse I saw, and I need him to be good because this isn’t a story I particularly want to watch. Rain plays a chaebol heir who leaves his inheritance behind to become a painter (and maybe boxer) while Crystal is his girlfriend who finally can’t stand living in artistic poverty with him. Not sure if she’s just mercenary or has a reason to choose money or love but the end result is lots of tearful recriminations all around plus maybe some intrigue and danger. Not sure how the movie will do in the C-box office when it opens this November but I’m game to check it out now for Crystal alone.

For Love or Money teaser trailer: