While maintaining its beauty and poignancy throughout its 150-minute run, I'd be a liar if I said that the lengthiness of this coming-of-age film wasn't felt after the 2nd hour. There's also an issue with the movie biting off more than it can chew. There are a few storylines with no storyline feeling like it takes precedence over the other.

The romance between the two male leads feels like it should be the main focus of the plot but for me, it felt like a subplot to the storyline with Tong's family. And without spoiling much, I'll just say that that entire storyline felt implausible and out of place in this move.

And then there's the ending... and don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining about the ending because it wasn't the ideal happy ending. I'm complaining because it ended on a bittersweet note just for the sake of doing so. It set itself up perfectly for the happy, ideal ending and then, for no reason, it took a left turn. It was a transparent attempt at being "realistic" but failed due to its very own plot and character development.