Lover's Discourse

Derek Tsang and Jimmy Wan

The story: Four interlocking stories about different aspects of love unfold in the feature debut from directors and scriptwriters Derek Tsang and Jimmy Wan. Ray (Eason Chan) and Nancy (Karena Lam) appear to be out on a date but things are not what they seem with this couple. Gigi (Kay Tse) has a crush on Sam (Eddie Peng) who patronises her laundry shop and concocts elaborate fantasies about them. Growing up, Sam’s best friend was Paul (played in his teens by William Chan), who nursed a secret infatuation with Sam’s mother Mrs Lai (Kit Chan). Back in the present day, Paul (played as an adult by Jacky Heung) receives an MSN message about his girlfriend’s infidelity from a woman he does not know. He meets up with Kay (Mavis Fan) and they later decide to tail each other’s partners.

Local singer-actress Kit Chan makes her feature film debut here and teams up with Hong Kong veteran Eric Tsang as the world’s least likely couple.

While new to movies, Chan is no stranger to stage musicals, including December Rains, and the small screen in the medical drama Healing Hands II (2000).

She turns in a restrained and nuanced performance as the object of infatuation of her son’s friend and there is also some intrigue and surprise as to how this yarn unspools.

Even better is the first story as the audience has to figure out the exact nature of Ray and Nancy’s relationship.

The thirty-something working adults, played with casual ease by Eason Chan and Karena Lam, seem at first to be navigating a first date with the attendant awkwardness of a first meeting. The fraught vibe eventually turns out to stem from the fact that they used to be a couple and are still attracted to each other.

A pity then that the rest of the film, which tries to dissect and understand the phenomenon of love through conversations between lovers, is less satisfying. Things get off to a rocky start with an unseen narrator intoning an important- sounding passage about the science and biology of love.

Instead of unifying the stories that follow, the pretentious opening feels, instead, like a failed attempt to give the film an art-house respectability.

In the idol drama section, pretty-as- a-picture Kay Tse hankers after cute-as- a-button Eddie Peng (Sam). Her fantasies, which feature Sam as a mannequin, are mildly amusing as they are inspired by diverse movie genres from wuxia to romance. The problem is that it all feels rather empty.

The final story links up the different vignettes but the story of the two spurned lovers who are brought together by their straying partners suffers from unconvincing melodrama and unsympathetic protagonists.

This is an ambitious effort from the scriptwriting-directing team of Derek Tsang and Jimmy Wan, who were nominated for Best Director at the Golden Horse awards last year. But it falls just on the wrong side of the fine line between smart and smart-alecky.

(ST)