4:30

Xiao Wu’s existence revolves around school, an empty apartment and the dubious comforts in instant noodles. His routine is subtly transformed by a tenant in the apartment. Their paths cross only once in a while. Xiao Wu longs for human contact. He tries all he can to establish a connection through physical and metaphorical walls in that hour between night and day. In the still of the night which is 4:30 am, a little boy Xiao Wu, wakes up almost religiously each day to spy on a Korean tenant of his family apartment. A latch key, lonely boy, he finds joy in crafting a virtual relationship with the man Jung, a foreigner with an agenda here, a friend he cannot communicate directly with given barriers like language and his non presence during the day. But of course that's just one, obvious layer of the movie. With clues and markers peppered throughout the movie, you'd be compelled to wonder if what is unveiled on screen, can be taken as a matter of fact. There is obviously no regular school in December, the boy's abuse of cough mixture a worrying phenomenon but one which suggests something of a dreamlike bizarreness, and a tinge of homo-erotic sentiments. These markers will tickle your mind as you try and sieve figments of imagination, from screen reality. The many silent moments give your mind plenty of workout time, sometimes into overdrive. There are plenty of Royston touches to this beautifully shot film, like his preference for all things old - like the Telecoms push button telephone (in green no less), the cloth wardrobe, and the facade of the Look Clinic. The main lead Xiao Li Yuan who plays Xiao Wu, is effectively bilingual, and quite believable in his role as the lonely kid yearning for some serious attention which he is not getting from his parents, lending to his frequent disruption of a neighbourhood tai-chi session, to his fixation and stalker-like behaviour towards Jung.