{"id":33383,"date":"2026-04-22T16:44:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=33383"},"modified":"2026-04-22T16:44:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:44:45","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-romancing-in-thin-air-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=33383","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: ROMANCING IN THIN AIR (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This \u201cLimited Edition\u201d Blu-ray from Radiance Films is\ncurrently available for purchase.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you live in North America and watch films from Hong Kong\nor China, then you may recognize the name of Johnny To because of his crime and\naction pictures. These include titles like The Heroic Trio, The Mad Monk,\nRunning on Karma, Election<\/em>, and 2012\u2019s Drug Wa<\/em>r, which was nominated\nby a few critic\u2019s groups around the globe for several awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But over the years, To has actually worked in a variety of\ngenres, including drama and romantic comedy. Radiance Films is certainly aware\nof his wide array of pictures, and are now releasing a notable effort to\naudiences in the western world.  Romancing\nin Thin Air is a rom-com of sorts (although the film historian commentary track\ndisputes this claim) that was a modest success during its original release. It\nseems that its fanbase has grown over the years and likely will become bigger\nwith its appearance on disc in this part of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story begins with famous Hong Kong actor\/singer Michael\nLau (Louis Koo) preparing to marry his girlfriend Ding Yuanyuan (Gao Yuanyuan),\nwho is from mainland China, in front of the media. The ceremony doesn\u2019t go as\nplanned when she leaves him at the altar. Shocked and embarrassed, Michael\nturns to drinking and ends up staggering around through a remote province in\nChina near a thick area of woods known for disappearances. There, he is\ndiscovered at a mountain hotel run by Sue (Sammi Cheng) and her friends. While under\nhis care, he struggles with altitude sickness, but starts to clean himself up\nand the two even start getting along, despite her distant behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Those who know Sue end up revealing that she was an art\nstudent who visited and fell for the shy owner of the establishment, Yang Xiaotian\n(Li Guangjie). The pair were even fans of Michael, with Sue registered as a fan\nclub member. Shortly after getting married, Yang decided to assist in the search\nfor a lost young girl in the nearby mountains. He never retuned and Sue hasn\u2019t gotten\nover the loss. In fact, many of the items around the business, including a piano.\nAs they begin to grown closer, long-standing issues of grief get in the way, which\nthey need to deal with in order to start fresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The film is gorgeously shot in a mountain community on the\nmainland and this is one of the title\u2019s strongest attributes. Stars Koo and\nCheng also share plenty of onscreen chemistry together, and the movie does a\ngood job of contrasting a media-obsessed Hong Kong culture with a slower-paced\nand more relaxed vibe of a small village on the mainland. There is a lot of\nhumor here from the supporting cast, but the movie is also understandably melancholy\nand bittersweet. It also interestingly deals with loss, especially when Sue\neventually learns what happened to her husband and Michael considers using the\nstory as a plot in a new movie. The way he decides to portray the real tale in\nthe film makes an impression, with a finale that might remind North American\nviewers of a couple of more recent Quentin Tarantino features (the first of\nwhich was made a few years prior to this effort).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It isn\u2019t perfect. The story of Yang in the woods is a bit\npreposterous (it would have been more convincing it what had occurred happened over\na much shorter period of time). As mentioned, some of the bigger performances\nemphasizing humor from the supporting cast are perhaps overplayed and don\u2019t sit\nas well with the serious moments. But the setting is unique and beautiful,\nthere\u2019s plenty of charm on display and the ending, while raising a few\nquestions of its own, is unique and stays with the viewers. This is an\neffective romance picture, or rom-com if you prefer to see that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This movie was made less than 15 years ago, so the image quality\non display is excellent. This title was delivered as a high-definition digital\nfile to the distributor. On my television, it looked great.  It\u2019s very sharp, with not a speck in sight in\neither the interior or the snowy natural environments. There are some exceptional\nshots of the camera moving high above the characters and trees that were either\ndone with a very tall crane or an early drone (apparently, drones came into\ncommon usage on film sets in 2012, so both conceivably could have been employed).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disc\u2019s bonuses are also informative. First is a film\nhistorian commentary that provides a wealth of information on the background behind\nthis movie. You\u2019ll learn about the cast\u2019s past credits and how productions\ncurrently operate in Hong Kong and China. China is a huge market, and while\nHong Kong features had a brief period of independence in the late 1980s and 90s,\nthey largely need the financial assistance of China, especially to this day.\nMaking a movie that takes place partly in mainland China helped the picture\nfind funding and distribution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You\u2019ll also learn about To\u2019s methods of directing.\nReportedly, he rarely wanted a completely script. While the main plot points\nwere always known, the filmmaker liked the natural and improvisational feel of\nactors using the real environments to influence their behavior. This was quite different\nfrom other moviemakers of the era, and notes that To hasn\u2019t been very inspired\nto make movies in the last seven years because of heavy censorship. Productions\nare now required by law to present a completed script to the government for\napproval before they can move forward, and, since he relies in part on making\nthings up on the spot, He\u2019s had difficulty getting his ideas to the big screen.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also an interview with the screenwriter, who\nexplains that the story was originally written to be set at a noted \u201csuicide\nforest\u201d in Japan, but the change in location resulted in him rewriting the\nstory. The results of the move are largely the same, though, and it didn\u2019t\ngreatly change the plot or what occurs in the feature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And there is a visual essay on To and his little seen (only in this part of the world) romantic melodramas. Additionally, you\u2019ll see a behind-the-scenes featurette from the original Hong Kong Blu-ray, as well as a compilation of behind-the-scenes videos taken during production in 2012. And a trailer for the film appears on the disc as the final extra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While not everything here works perfectly, Romancing in\nThin Air<\/em> is stronger than early reviews might have suggested. It is an\nengaging drama with comedic elements that features an interesting and unusual\npremise that allows it to stand out from others of its ilk. It\u2019s a good film\nand Radiance Films\u2019 Blu-ray of the title is also wonderfully executed,\ndelivering a very pleasing picture and a number of bonuses that offer a lot of\nfascinating information about the director and his work in genres that people\non this side of the planet rarely get to see. Even if rom-coms or melodramas\naren\u2019t part of your typical viewing habits, there\u2019s enough unique stuff in here\nto make it worth checking out. Pick it up if you have the opportunity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This \u201cLimited Edition\u201d Blu-ray from Radiance Films is currently available for purchase. If you live in North America and watch films from Hong Kong or China, then you may recognize the name of Johnny To because of his crime and action pictures. These include titles like The Heroic Trio, The Mad Monk, Running on Karma, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[162,2939,4256,9288,10932,12669,13672,14299,16584,17302,17315,17316,17317,17583],"class_list":["post-33383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-162","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-2","tag-china","tag-hong-kong","tag-johnnie-to","tag-louis-koo","tag-melodrama","tag-mountains","tag-radiance-films","tag-rom-com","tag-romancing-in-thin-air","tag-romancing-in-thin-air-blu-ray-review","tag-romancing-in-thin-air-review","tag-sammi-cheng"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}