Hongkong Love Affair

Other reviewers have said it well: this is a wonderfully romantic film. I hate to make a statement like, "It's the Asian version of . . . ", because the film doesn't need a comparison to any American film to have an identity, BUT it has several things in common with "The Way We Were", "Comrades" follows an up-and-down romance over the span of several years and has that same quality of bittersweet fate hanging over them throughout. The early scenes in which Li Xiaojun (Leon Lai) and Li Qiao (Maggie Cheung) begin their love affair are particularly entertaining. A favorite scene: Li Xiaojun helping Li Qiao on with her coat, they get closer and closer, their lips brush together, then they embrace, then a full on kiss, then mutual passion overtakes them as they both feverishly unbutton that same coat they had just been struggling to button. The scene is both sweetly romantic and humorous.

Another similarity to "The Way We Were" is that both films benefit from a tear-inducing song, in this case a love song by Taiwanese singer Teresa Tang which plays a vital role in the plot. Great job of direction by Peter Chan and a wonderful script, but it's the performance by Maggie Cheung that really sells the film. From the moment you see her behind the counter at McDonald's you're hooked by her energy, spunk, attitude, and determination. Her character runs the gamut of emotions during the course of the film and there wasn't one false moment in her performance. She is totally believable, whether she's flashing a self-satisfied grin into her ATM machine or dealing with a devastating loss (I won't give it away, but Cheung's reaction is heart-wrenching). "Comrades" is truly a wonderful film.

This movie is delightful from start to finish. Although some of the coincidences and chance meetings are highly improbable (both going to NYC? Both watching the same TV set at the same time?), they cannot spoil what is a genuinely touching and moving experience.

Instead of a the usual scenario where two people try desperately to find love, the two leads, Li Chiao (Maggie Cheung) and Li Xiao Jun (Leon Lai), try desperately to avoid it. Both Mainlanders, she has come to Hong Kong to make her fortune; he has come to earn enough money to marry his long-time fiancée back on the Mainland. Through a brief meeting in a McDonalds where Li Chiao works one of her several part-time jobs, and Xiao Jun has come to experience the unknown-in-his-hometown food, they become friends. They discover a shared love for the songs of Taiwanese singer Teresa Tang, which become the soundtrack to their relationship. Both are lonely, and gradually they form a genuine friendship, then a not-so-casual intimate relationship. Their struggle to remain true to their original goal in coming to Hong Kong leads to an emotional crisis for both them and their partners. The struggle takes place over a ten year period, during which they separate only to keep bumping into one another and reopening old wounds. The resolution of this struggle is sweet indeed.

The lead actors are both exceptional, particularly Leon Lai, who always seemed to be playing a variation on himself until this film. He is completely believable as the naive and trusting Xiao Jun, and Maggie Cheung is, as ever, radiant and affecting. The songs of Teresa Tang are used to great effect, one of which gives the film it's title (Tian mi mi, the title of the Chinese version, roughly translates as Sweet Like Honey).

Loses a point for the number of coincidences, but otherwise unreservedly recommended.

Peter Chan's COMRADES: ALMOST A LOVE STORY is a touchstone of Hong Kong cinema, a decade-spanning romance revolves around two Chinese main-lander finding their feet in HK from the bottom-line and shoved together by loneliness, camaraderie and simmering affection, yet their life trajectory would bifurcate by checkered fate, only to be reunited in a foreign land of New York City, ten years after their first encounter, serendipitously facilitated by the news of the sad demise of their favorite singer Teresa Teng (1953-1995).

Li Xiaojun (Lai) and Li Qiao (Maggie Cheung), he is a wide-eyed Northerner arrives in HK to stay with his auntie (Tsu), doesn't speak Cantonese but his dream is to earn enough money to bring her fiancée Xiaoting (Yang) to HK and tie the knots; she, a Southerner from Guangdong Province who sports a fluent Cantonese (initially, she withholds her provenance from him), is more opportunistic and all she wants to be is a successful Hong Kong citizen, thus, the biggest barrier between them is their disparate nature of their goals, but that doesn't stop them from being friends and sometimes, bed-mates through the vicissitude of their lives. But the key is always in her hands, from a MacDonald girl, to various sidelines, it is the unethical job of a masseuse introduces Li Qiao to the triad boss Pao (Tsang), an ostentatious, chubby shorty whom she grows attached with, in Ivy Ho's organically unforced script, this reflects a limpid sensibility of don't-judge-the-book-by- its-cover philosophy, and this sidebar would culminate in a heart-string-tugging crescendo where Maggie Cheung enthralls us with a textbook exemplar of how to turn on the waterworks.

Both Xiaojun and Li Qiao would attain their dreams in due course, but that doesn't automatically bring them the happiness they pine for, it is a familiar scenario of right people meet in the wrong time, which is well-integrated into their backdrop of an unglamorous view of Hong Kong at its time, a financial hub beckons a better life, but also rifles with geometrical and language discrimination (the Teresa Teng mythos), speculative business (dubious stock market), nostalgia (auntie's lingering on the beggar-belief history with William Holden) and an undertow of uncertainty during that consequential decade, before Hong Kong would be returned to its motherland in 1997 to bookend its colonial history.

Burnished by Ivy Ho's top-notch diegesis (one particularly coup-de-maître comes when Li Qiao accidentally honks her car, which prompts Xiaojun into action of rekindling their affair, with Teresa's autograph emblazoned as an oracular signpost, it is one of those fortuitous incidents actually could become a game-changer in one's life), and two leads' deeply engaging performances, Leon Lai is thoroughly uncontrived in a very sympathetic and good-natured role without coming off as cutesy, and Maggie Cheung, the Hong Kong cinema goddess, one just cannot overpraise her magnificence and versatility (please, come back to the silver screen!), Peter Chan's outstanding romance saga eschews every nook and cranny to embarrass itself as a schlocky weepie and withstands its emotional punch up until its well-rounded cyclical coda, a knowing nod to the numinous methodology of predestination.

This brilliant love epic spans 10 years and traces the star-crossed relationship between two Chinese immigrants who are mysteriously drawn to each other and find comfort in each other's experiences. Though certain coincidences are perhaps unrealistic at first glimpse, the scriptwriters handle it extremely well, embedding them in a believable situation. The direction is flawless, the casting is perfect. Leon's innocent face is exquisite and Maggie's strength and determination deem her a likable heroine. Perhaps slow for non-romantics, this movie paints a beautiful portrait of ideal love, one which surpasses time and place and confirms the ideal belief that certain things are meant to happen in our life. This movie addresses many issues at a level yet unreached by Hollywood and it can really teach westerners a lesson on how to bring out the essence of true love.

This movie is much more than a conventional romance, with the typical meet-cute sequence and plot-convenient obstacles that get neatly resolved. I'm thinking of the typical American Meg-Ryan-Julia-Roberts movie, where everyone is inexplicably wealthy, no one has any real problems, and all the "wrong" boy/girl-friends are shrews or dorks ... so the audience has nothing to do but wait for the inevitable and unrealistic end.

This movie represents some other real-life complications, such as coping without a lot of money, and shows the characters struggling with, and taking responsibilities for, their relationships and commitments.

The two leads, Maggie Cheung & Leon Lai, are terrific. Also wonderful is the supporting performance by Eric Tsang as Pao Au-Yeung. This is a thoughtful and beautiful movie about real people and real love.