Secret

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.

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'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.

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:

Music

A soundtrack album was released by JVR Music on 13 August 2007.

Reception

According to Cinema Online, Chou does a better job behind the scenes than in front of the camera. The pace of the story is satisfying, cinematography is beautiful and Chou is able to convey the magic of music: "You leave the cinema with the image of Chou's fingers dancing over the piano keys, creating that extraordinary music. It will be the image of Chou playing the piano one-handed, playing two pianos at the same time, and playing the piano with his upturned face in dream-like bliss. That is what makes this film worth the watch. As I said, its salvation. Music, so it seems, really can be magical."

LoveHKFilm.com agrees that Chou is not the best male lead for a romantic role, he is not able to produce the range of emotions needed to touch moviegoers. Instead, the female lead Kwai Lun Mei was praised for her excellent acting. The critic regards the film as a nice, romantic, fairly good picture and that Jay Chou directs with an able hand. Cinematography and art direction was also praised for its beauty, as well as the film score. The critic regards the illogical story as the biggest disadvantage for the film, saying that the plot often does not follow its own rules, creating logical gaps. The supporting actors were found to be boring, with the exception of Anthony Wong, who was praised for his acting diversity. According to the critic, there is a certain chemistry between Chou and Gwei but their dialogues lack depth and emotions, largely due to Chou's inability to act well. He regarded Chou as a likable, charming presence but utterly without any passion on screen, being too distant in his emotions.

Asianmovieweb is surprised to see Chou as a good director but dismisses him as an actor. The soundtrack is praised for its beauty as well as the cinematography and the attention Chou paid to tiny details. The critic also mentioned the logical gaps in the story being very distracting.

Variety thought the film was surprisingly good, with decent acting and praised the music as well. The critic sees South Korean cinematic influences in Secret and compared the style of the film to early Hollywood pictures from the 1940s and Taiwanese pictures from the 1970s.

movieXclusive.com states that it is rare to see such a well directed picture from a musician-turned-director but Chou is able to "pull it off". Casting choices were praised especially with regard to Anthony Wong and Kwai Lun Mei, the latter being praised for her ability to create a secretive air around herself. The best part of the film according to the critic is the "onslaught of piano performances" that were compared to action scenes of Jet Li and Tony Jaa. However, the critic was not satisfied with the editing and pacing of the film but nevertheless regarded the film as a successful piece of art.

Remakes

On 15 February 2021, it was announced that a Korean remake of the movie would be directed by Seo Yoo-min, and would star Doh Kyung-soo, Won Jin-ah, and Shin Ye-eun. Filming for the movie started in November 2021 and ended on 21 January 2022. It was released on 27 January 2025.

A Japanese remake was released in 2024.

Awards and nominations

Secret won three awards out of seven nominations from the 44th Golden Horse Awards in 2007 and 27th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2008.