Secret () is a 2007 musical romantic film. A Taiwanese-Hong Kong co-production, it is the directorial debut feature film of Taiwanese musician Jay Chou, who also stars as the male lead and co-wrote the film. In addition to himself, the film also stars Gwei Lun-mei and Anthony Wong. Filming was conducted at Tamkang High School, New Taipei City, Taiwan, which is also the alma mater of Jay Chou. The budget was about NT$65 million.
In 2007, it received six nominations at the 44th Golden Horse Awards and won Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year, Best Original Song for "Secret" ("不能說的祕密") and Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Best Asian Film at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2008. In 2016, an adapted brand new stage musical with same name was jointly produced by US Broadway and China Broadway.
Plot Piano prodigy Ye Xianglun (Jay Chou) lives with his father (Anthony Wong Chau-sang). In 1999, Xianglun transfers into the famous music school, Tamkang (Danjiang) Secondary School, where his father is a teacher. His classmate Qingyi (Alice Tzeng) gives him a campus tour, noting that the piano building will be torn down on graduation day. In the building, he hears a beautiful, mysterious melody ("Secret"), leading him to Lu Xiaoyu (Gwei Lun-mei), another piano student. After class, Xianglun asks Xiaoyu about the song; she tells him it is a secret that cannot be told.
Xianglun and Xiaoyu spend time together in the practice rooms or around town. They share their first kiss after he gives her a rare music score that he won for her at a school piano battle. When Xianglun tells Xiaoyu about the demolition of the piano building on graduation day, she plays him the mysterious song "Secret", telling him never to play it on the piano room's oldest piano. Xiaoyu then suddenly disappears and skips class for days. Xiaoyu also begins to develop an undercurrent of jealousy as Qingyi tries to get closer with Xianglun.
In class a few days later, Xianglun passes a note to Xiaoyu asking her to meet him at the practice rooms. However, Qingyi shows up instead, and Xianglun accidentally kisses her since his eyes are closed. He realizes his mistake when the janitor loudly says hello to Xiaoyu outside the door; Xianglun rushes out, but she is already out of sight. He goes to Xiaoyu's home to clear things up, but her mother says she is sick and had dropped out of school a long time ago. She tells Xianglun not to look for her daughter again.
Five months later, graduation day had arrived, with Xianglun set to perform on stage at the graduation ceremony. Qingyi lends him her bracelet to wish him luck. Halfway through the performance, Xianglun sees Xiaoyu by the door, and they share a smile before she quickly leaves. Xianglun abandons the performance and runs outside, chasing down Xiaoyu and embracing her, telling her to wait for him. However, before he goes back, she sees Qingyi's bracelet on his wrist.
When Xianglun goes looking for Xiaoyu after the ceremony a few minutes later, he cannot find her anywhere. Upon asking a few classmates if they had seen the girl he was always with, they are confused and reply that he was always alone. Xianglun begins to have flashbacks to all the times they hung out together, but in those memories, she is missing and he is alone. Desperate for answers, he races to Xiaoyu's house. She is missing, but Xiaoyu's mother gives him a photo of Xiaoyu with his father.
Xianglun rushes home and asks his father about her. The film cuts to a scene with Xiaoyu, in 1979 (20 years ago), speaking with Xianglun's father (her teacher at the time, at the same school). She confesses that she had found a score hidden in the oldest piano on campus, called "Secret", and when she played it on the piano, she had traveled forward in time 20 years and met Xianglun. However, she explains that during her time travels, she can only be seen by the first person she sees, and she doesn't always succeed in seeing Xianglun first, so it appears as though she is missing most days. However, she is now depressed since she had caught him kissing another girl, then saw that girl's bracelet on his wrist. Since she never wants to see him again, she gives the score of "Secret" to Xianglun's father.
Naturally, Xianglun's father thinks the story is ridiculous, and believes she is suffering from some mental illness. Xianglun's father shares her story with the classroom leader who leaks it to her fellow classmates of 1979, as well as Xiaoyu's mother.
Back in the present, Xianglun realizes that the music piece that she showed him was "Secret", and could take the pianist into the past or future if played at the right speed, on the old piano. He rushes off to the piano building, which is about to be torn down. At the same time, Xianglun's father retrieves the manuscript of "Secret" that Xiaoyu had given to him for safekeeping, and realizes that Xiaoyu had written a message (20 years ago) to Xianglun on the back, corroborating her stories of time travel. Meanwhile, Xianglun enters the piano room and, as the demolition begins, starts to play "Secret" from memory, remembering Xiaoyu's words, "I always play it fast when I want to go back". He continues playing as the building crashes down around him; just before he is smashed by a wrecking ball, he plays the last note.
The scene cuts to outside the classroom. Xianglun peeks inside, and Xiaoyu looks back at him and smiles. The last scene shows the 1979 graduation photo of Tamkang (Danjiang) Secondary School, with Xianglun and Xiaoyu standing next to each other.
Cast Jay Chou as Ye Xianglun, male lead, a music student majoring in piano and lives with his father. Gwei Lun-mei as Lu Xiaoyu, female lead, a music student who lives with her mother. Anthony Wong as Xianglun's father, the discipline teacher at his school. Alice Tzeng as Qingyi, Xianglun's classmate who is secretly in love with him. Devon Song as Abao, Xianglun's friend and member of the rugby team, often seen together with Alang. Huang Junlang as Alang, Xianglun's friend and captain of the rugby team, often seen together with Abao. Yuhao Zhan as Yu Hao, a music student and talented piano player, nicknamed "Prince of the piano". He has a "piano battle" with Xianglun. Huang Xin-yu as Xue Gao. Funky Tu as Ta-yung Chase Chang as Record store owner Gary Yang as Ye Xianglun's classmate Aviis Zhong as Hsiao-hua
Production The film tells a "simple but very beautiful" love story, which Chou denies was adapted from his personal experiences. When the film debuted, Chou admitted that he drew from childhood experience for the plot, although his personal story was not as romantic.
Filming began in January 2007 and was completed in March. Despite previous experience in filming music videos, Chou admits that films are much more challenging due to storyline complexity and time constraints.
Because Chou was worried that people might question if he actually directed the film himself, he even refused veteran director Andrew Lau Wai Keung to visit him during shooting. However, Chou says that he did send a pilot film to Lau afterwards.
Chou has announced his plans to direct a sequel to the film and plans to invite Andy Lau to star in it.
Tribute Chou added elements to the film to pay tribute to his high school and his favorite composer, Frédéric Chopin.
淡江中學 (Tamkang (Danjiang) High School) 2007 marks the 10th year he graduated from his alma mater. In the film, he incorporated elements which reflected his actual experience in school, such as his stint as pianist for the school choir. In the film, he was the orchestra's pianist and played during high school graduation. The date when Xiaoyu first goes to class is 18 January 1979 – which is Jay Chou's birth-date. The students on duty were Vincent Fang and Alang Huang, both lyricists who often work with him. Chopin: One of Chopin's waltzes, the Farewell Waltz, plays in the background briefly at the beginning of the film. Right at the beginning of the film, a lesson about Chopin is being taught in class. He is described as a gifted musician and composer. There are two paintings in the music room that are supposedly Chopin and his beloved (George Sand). The conversation between Xianglun and Xiaoyu is about Chopin and his lover. Xianglun laments that the two eventually parted ways. However, Xiaoyu seems envious that the couple was able to spend 10 years together.Chopin – biography Chopin's Waltz (Op. 64 No. 2 in C minor) and "Black Key" Etude (Op. 10 No. 5 in G major) feature in the piano duel scene. Note that the melodic sequence of the "Black Key" Etude that is performed in the film includes both the introductory black key sequence, as well as an improvisation in which the introductory theme of the etude is transposed a half step higher and is played almost entirely on the white keys. In the middle of the film, just before Xiaoyu talks about the relationship between Chopin and Sand, Xianglun plays an excerpt from Chopin's posthumous Nocturne No. 21 in C minor.
Plot analysis
Time travel According to the instructions written in the piano score, there are three conditions involved in the Time travel: Follow the notes upon the journey. The person needs to play the melodies in the piano score so they could time travel. At first sight marks one's destiny. The first person that the time traveler sees will be the only person that could see the time traveler.(Meaning that a different person could see the time traveler every time they travel through time. In the film, Xiaoyu explained the "just one time" rule by saying: "But it's not smooth every time.", pertaining to the fact that there were times that she saw other people instead of Xianglun.) Return lies within hasty keys. The melody had two versions: lento and allegro. Allegro is played to travel back to the past (20 years ago) while the lento version is played to travel to the future. In the film, Xiaoyu explained that she needed to play the song faster when she returns to the past.
In addition, other conditions are implied: There is a time difference when playing the piano score. It will not affect everything immediately. This is different from "Butterfly effect". The time concept used here is similar to the movie "Back to the Future". That means the past and the present time is paralleled. If we want to change the present, we need someone to return to the parallel time-space line to change the past objects to affect the present time and space. But when the people travel to the future, they have no effect on time and space. The melody is used in the antique piano room only, or effective only on the antique piano where the word "secret" is printed. Therefore, Xiaoyu did not return to the past when she taught Xianglun "Secret" because they were in a different room and was using a different piano.Note: The movie does not reveal why the antique piano and the piano score contained the magic of time-travel.
The conditions of the piano score were rationalised in the following scenarios: "At first sight marks one's destiny." When Xiaoyu first finished playing "Secret", Xianglun was the first person she saw, and only he could see her within that time-travel. This was explained already in the movie. Because of the rule above, Xiaoyu kept her eyes closed after she travelled to the future, counted 108 steps from the antique piano room to Xianglun's classroom, and only opened her eyes in front of the door where she can see Xianglun. On the day of the "piano fight", Xiaoyu accidentally saw Qingyi first, therefore the two girls were able to chat in the crowd. But Xianglun had no way to see that Qingyi was talking with someone in the crowd.