The Kiss that Sparked it All

With a rough shove, Valor found herself crashing down onto the cold concrete.

All she had wanted was a glimpse of the world beyond her small bubble. Was that such a crime?

Had she erred right from the start by leaving her quaint hometown?

Otherwise, why would she now be lost in this unfamiliar city, clueless about the way back home?

Valor regretted.

The latter part of the story is about Valor’s quest to find her way home – a concept that might baffle many city-dwelling college students today. How could someone not know their way back?

But for a girl like Valor, who had grown up in a quaint, technologically untouched fishing village, it was a stark reality.

The man had lured her out of her village with promises of adventure, only to abandon her in the sprawling metropolis.

It was unfair to claim he had taken Valor away solely for a taste of novelty; perhaps, amid the natural purity of the village, he had genuinely felt a fleeting impulse for the naive, passionate girl.

They might have shared a sort of hazy love story.

But once engulfed by the city’s splendor, that hazy love became a burden.

He didn’t need someone as clumsy and unsophisticated as Valor by his side, and she, knowing nothing of the city’s ways, became an encumbrance.

The story ended with an open ending – whether Valor ever made it back to her beloved village, whether she reconciled with her best friend, were all left to the interpretation of the audience.

Ivy believed Valor never returned. Had she made it back, her face wouldn’t still bear the streaks of fresh tears.

As the film’s ending credits rolled and the lights brightened, the audience remained silent for a long while. They had come for light entertainment but had been served a tale laden with sorrow.

The director had said that making this film took a long time, not just in securing funding but also in telling a story drawn from real life a real story that had unfolded in a remote fishing village.

Yet, they all lamented the uncertainty of Valor’s fate, both in the story and in reality. This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.

Such tales were all too common in that village. Valor, left adrift in the big city, was one of the lucky ones, as her only trouble was to find her way home.

Many others girls had been lured into nightmarish hell from which there was no escape.

The original script given to the director had been even more harrowing. But from the onset, he wanted to infuse the story with a touch of commercial appeal and to do something for that remote village.

The initial version was award-bait, but in this era of fast consumption, few were willing to spend two hours in a theater immersed in such a narrative.

The story began with a dreamy tale of young love, capturing everyone’s attention, only to reveal the harsh reality faced by girls from the village venturing into the city.

Was Valor wrong to seek out the city? No.

Was the man wrong for having a fling with her? No, not in itself.

But his fault lay in recklessly taking Valor out of her village, only to cruelly discard her in a city where she wandered, lost and alone.

In the movie, Valor’s love interest never even had a name, referred to simply as “he” a placeholder for the countless others like him.