“It is a joy to spend 90-odd minutes in the presence of somebody who can make a compelling film even if their directorial voice isn’t fully developed.”

Finding your roots, searching for resolution of a childhood trauma, youthful ennui. These tested themes are at the centre of debuting director Choy Ji’s dreamy and sensitively rendered drama Borrowed Time, a film rightfully placed in the Bright Future section of the festival. Because if Borrowed Time is anything to go by Choy Ji definitely has that bright future ahead of him. Stylistically influenced by the early cinema of Wong Kar-wai as well as the more esoteric works of some of the region’s filmmakers, the Guangzhou-based director threatens to lose track of his core subject matter, but so vividly does he tickle both the visual and aural senses that he can be forgiven for the somewhat rambling third act.

Borrowed Time starts in Choy Ji’s hometown, where Ting (Lin Dongping) is on the brink of marriage. A strained relationship with her mother and a father who has been absent since her childhood raise insecurities about this prospect. Aiming to find resolution for the wound that her father’s departure has inflicted, she sets out for Hong Kong armed with questions and a CD whose title gives the film its name but also holds a dear memory for her. With an approaching typhoon on the horizon (a metaphor if ever there was one), Ting scours the city’s markets in search of something to fill a hole in her life. When she runs into a childhood friend with whom she shares a memory over the CD, an opportunity arises to enjoy the possibilities of a secret life, if only for a short period of borrowed time.

On the back of Huang Shuli and Liang Chiheng’s gorgeous, lush cinematography and an evocative sound design by Lau Bobo, Borrowed Time is a feast for the eyes and ears. They set the mood for a restrained character drama that unexpectedly develops into an oddly romantic film in which long silences are laden with sensuality. That Ting’s quest for her father gets a bit lost in the shuffle once she develops a relationship with her unnamed childhood friend is unfortunate and diminishes the emotion of the film’s final shot, but Borrowed Time‘s last act is also its most free-flowing and cinematic part. Not everything is easy to grapple with and Choy Ji provides little to hold onto, but submerging in the mood that is Borrowed Time is a rewarding exercise.

Borrowed Time is also a story about change. In an interview with Deadline Choy Ji said that he wanted to show the change in perception of Hong Kong in the eyes of someone who hasn’t been there for 20 years (which would be the central character Ting). The problem is that the film shows very little of Ting’s past, so it is difficult for a Western outsider to pick up on this, not in the least because we are looking through the eyes of a local. The idea of Hong Kong transformed from a magical childhood memory into a regular Chinese city like so many others falls flat.

But while Choy Ji struggles to put his ideas into a coherent story and clear narrative vision, when it comes to visual flair and a keen sense of using audio to shape a scene Borrowed Time makes up for its flaws. The film coasts on mood, and with a relatively short runtime (certainly in a time when 3-hour films seem to have become the norm) it is a joy to spend 90-odd minutes in the presence of somebody who can make a compelling film even if their directorial voice isn’t fully developed.