Directed by Engin Erden, Chasing the Wind suffers from inauthentic writing and cliched conflicts, but somehow, it makes up for it through its aesthetic setting, exceptional cinematography, and good-looking cast. The film follows the life of a successful businesswoman who takes on the challenge of finding a way out of a difficult situation and saving her business. So, let’s find out what happened in the film and if Asli, the protagonist, was able to save her company from drowning in debt.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Asli decide to meet Ege Yazici?
Asli, together with her father, Arif, and Nazmi (who was her father’s friend), ran a successful business, though in recent years, due to certain bad investments, the company had incurred heavy losses. The CFO had embezzled a huge sum of money, and Asli was in talks with the Maltese authorities to get their money back, as the CFO had probably made certain investments there. Asli was dating the legal advisor of the company, Cenk, and he informed everybody about the issues that could arise if they didn’t make up for that money. Nazmi and Arif called for a meeting, and they informed Asli that they had something on their mind to cover the losses for the forthcoming year. The company owned property in Cesme, and Nazmi told Asli that a reputed hotel franchise was interested in buying the land and opening a five-star hotel there. The problem was that Nazmi’s son, Ege Yazici, stayed there, and happened to be on the board of directors, and he was absolutely against the sale of the property. Asli told her uncle and father that she could go to Cesme and try convincing the guy. Asli was pretty sure that she would be able to convince Ege, probably because she had taken him for a rich brat who was just being stubborn. Asli was a bit surprised when she couldn’t find anything about Ege on the social media platforms. The man led a very private life, and nobody had any clue what he was up to in Cesme, why he chose to keep himself away from his family’s business, and why his father was not on talking terms with him.
What problems did Ege have with his father?
Asli reached Cesme, and she went to eat in a restaurant near her hotel, not knowing that the place belonged to Ege Yazici. Ege and Asli met at the restaurant, and the former realized who she was but chose not to tell her anything about it. There was a drunk man at the restaurant who passed certain lewd remarks at Asli and then misbehaved with her. Ege intervened and asked his business partner, Yaman, to escort the man out of the place. Ege and Asli started talking, and the latter felt attracted to him. Ege escorted Asli back to her hotel, and when the latter asked him to come inside, he very politely declined the request. Ege didn’t want to mix business with pleasure, as he knew that things would get complicated if something happened between him and Asli. The next day, Asli went to Ege’s beachside shack, where he gave surfing training to people. She was shocked to find Ege, as possibly she had a very different image of him in her mind. Ege told Asli upfront that he was not going to sell the property, even if it meant the board of directors waging a war on him. He told Asli that he didn’t want to disturb the ecological balance and the serenity of the place; he didn’t want to block the air by constructing a high-rise building, and most of all, he didn’t want the capitalists to forcefully commercialize the area and spoil it. One thing that became quite clear was that Ege wasn’t a greedy man or a rich spoiled brat. In fact, he hadn’t touched his share of the money that he inherited from his family business. He told Asli that she and the others would probably never realize what that place meant to him, but he was not going to give in till his last breath. So, Asli, not having any other option, decided to extend her trip in the hope that she could change Ege’s mind. But, unprecedentedly, instead of changing his mind, she got so influenced that she started questioning her life choices. Asli enrolled in surfing classes, and she started meeting Ege on a regular basis. Asli started understanding his way of life, what he liked doing in his free time, why he wasn’t part of the family business, and why he was so against the hotel being constructed in Cesme.
Once, Asli accompanied Ege to one of his family friends’ houses because she just wanted to spend as much time with him as possible so that she could change his mind about not selling his property. Ferrus and her husband Korkmaz were like Ege’s parents. They owned a vineyard in the town, and they shared a very close bond with Ege because they had known him since he was a child. Ferrus told Asli that Nazmi, Ege’s father, was somehow responsible for ruining Figen’s (Ege’s mother) life. Ferrus told Asli that Figen was a really good singer and had wanted to pursue her passion, but Nazmi never allowed her to do that. Nazmi sent Ege abroad for studies, and he snatched the only reason for Figen’s happiness from her. Ege never talked to his father because he knew that he was an extremely selfish and unempathetic man. Ege lived in Cesme because he didn’t want anything to do with his family business. Asli found out that Ege was quite self-sufficient when it came to his own businesses. He hadn’t taken a single penny from his family, he’d never made even a single bad investment, and he paid his taxes on time.
Korkmaz fell ill that day, which is why Ferrus asked both Asli and Ege to stay the night at her place. That night, Asli felt something strange within her. She felt as if she was falling for the humble and charming man. She knew that being in a relationship with Cenk, she shouldn’t be entertaining such thoughts, but she felt helpless. She hadn’t spoken about it to Cenk, but she didn’t feel happy about it. Their relationship had become a burden for her, though I believe that keeping Cenk in the dark about what she was feeling was not the right thing to do. No matter what kind of a man Cenk was, he deserved to be told the truth. That said, Asli and Ege came back from their short trip, and the former asked Ege for the last time if he was going to change his mind about selling the place or not. Ege told Asli that it didn’t matter to him what his father or other board of directors did because he didn’t have the fear of losing anything. Asli realized that she couldn’t convince Ege, and so she decided to leave Cesme the next day.
Was Asli able to convince Ege to sell his land?
During Chasing the Wind’s ending, Asli told Ege that she was going to leave the next day, and so the latter invited her to his place to have a meal together. Asli brought a rare vinyl record for the music enthusiast Ege. While they were chatting over the meal, we realized that even Ege had started feeling attracted towards Asli. Ege expressed his feelings for Asli, and she, quite opposite to her nature, decided to cancel her flight and stay back. Cenk had come to Cesme once before, and he had seen Asli with Ege. Cenk was not a stupid man, and he noted that there was something going on between them. Asli, while doing a thorough background search, had found out that Ege and Yaman were co-owners of a company, something which he was not authorized to do as a member of the board of directors of his family-owned company. What it meant in legal terms was that Ege could be removed from his position, and the other board members didn’t need his signature to greenlight the project. Asli decided to keep that information to herself and her office subordinate/friend because she had fallen in love with the man, and now she understood Ege’s perspective. But Cenk got a whiff of what was happening, figured out that Ege had done something in violation of the rules of the company, and decided to take charge of things. Cenk reached Cesme, and he created a scene there, telling everyone what Asli was really up to. Ege felt hurt, and he didn’t talk to Asli for days. She returned to Istanbul and decided to focus on her mundane job again. The board got ready to strip Ege of his title, but then there came a twist.
In Chasing the Wind’s ending, Ege, through his sources, figured out that Nazmi and Cenk were involved in embezzling funds and the CFO was just acting on their orders. Ege went to Istanbul, barged into the board meeting, and emphatically declared what he had found out. Nazmi and Cenk’s secret plot to commit fraud backfired, and they were fired from their positions. Ege contributed all the money that had come his way from the family business so that the company could make up for its losses. In return, he told the board members to make him the owner of the property in Cesme so that he could protect his favorite place and keep running his business the way he wanted. Asli also went back to Cesme because she realized what her calling was and who she wanted to spend her life with. Ege forgave her because he knew that she didn’t have any bad intentions and that she had just gotten stuck in a difficult situation. Ege and Asli were two broken individuals with familial issues who completed each other, and I believe in the years to come, their love for each other will help them reinstate their faith in the institution of marriage. As the sun sets and slowly disappears, we can see Ege and Asli standing together, tossing stones into the water—a local tradition that is believed to grant the traveler’s wishes. So what do they finally ask for? Maybe a future together, far removed from the toxicity of their profession.
