Summer (2006) User Reviews

Not so engaging, but positively gives hope to young people

[Gordon-11 · 19 September 2008]

This film is about a meeting of two teenage friends in a forest. They are great friends until one confesses his feeling for the other.

"Summer" is a low budget short. It features two young mates messing around in the forest. They devised a game of catching falling leaves, which involves a lot of physical contact. One thing led to another, and Leung confessed his feelings to Will. It is a rather standard plot, and it is not particularly engaging either. In fact, I found "Summer" rather boring. I have to point out though, the positivity of the ending is nice and certainly welcomed. It gives young people hope that things are not necessarily bad after coming out.

The last line renders this whole short pointless

[scootmandutoo · 2/10 · 21 March 2011]

As one poster wrote, while this plot is rather standard, it showed some hope to gay youth that struggle with coming out. It gives them encouragement that maybe their friends won't reject them. It is the ONLY reason this did not get 1 star from me.

Because, with the last line of dialogue, this short film crosses the line. Do not read further unless you have seen it.

The last line made this entire exercise pointless. To me it represented every bit of self-loathing I thought this short was trying to dispel.

Actually, it made me ask...what was the point of this 9 minute short? What is the reason for filming a scene that is only an excuse for expressing that the person feels so bad about who they are that they would only share it with their parent after they were dead? And then end the piece there?

A disgusting sentiment, in my opinion. And an unfair slice of emotional baggage to throw out at some youths who might be inclined to take that advice to heart.

the producer should have known better

[fatbuddhadvd · 1/10 · 7 July 2009]

This film lacks the experienced hand of a good producer to steer it away from being a tired and hackneyed 9 minute exploration on the well worn subject of coming out to a mate. A dedicated and ambitious producer would have spent more time developing this script into something more interesting.

Whilst the director's composition of shots and choice of angles is appealing and shows promise he couldhave benefited from a more mature and adventurous producer's input on the narrative and guidance on the film's intentions. That the director has not gone on to do another larger project might have more to do with the producer's failings and less to do with the director's promise.

The cinematography deserves credit for capturing a still calm from the atmosphere of the woodland scenes.

Bad in all regards

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 22 November 2015]

"Summer" is a British 9-minute short film from almost 10 years ago written and directed by Hong Khaou. It was an early career effort, but he made more gay-themed films after this one. Now the short film genre is very popular for films about homosexuality and as a consequence there are really many that are not only not memorable, but even pretty weak. This one is weaker than weak. It looks like a very bad student film to be honest. The script is ridiculous, the actions feel out of place, the dialogs never feel authentic and the whole production looks flawed. The two lead actors aren't convincing either, especially the Asian guy. I never had the impression I was watching something other than actors playing somebody else. A truly disappointing little movie and I highly recommend not to watch it.

nice

[Kirpianuscus · 21 September 2019]

Two mates . Talks, games, jokes, a kiss. And new talk. It is complicated to say something significant about a decent short film, seductive for freshness, not great fot the high prudence of the director, with interesting beginning but with a conventional end, proposing a story of friendship but ignoring the oportunities of story. Short, a nice film, for the performances, first.

Doesn't shine like it could.

[adamjohns-42575 · 2/10 · 11 May 2021]

It's a shame to say that I found there to be not much point to this one and it had such potential as well. It could have been a cute story about two lads falling in love or at least one straight ones acceptance of the other, but the resolution didn't have enough detail and the ending seemed to come too quickly as if it was an instalment of a series instead and we had to wait for the next part.