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Richard James Havis

Hong Kong romance films have always been notoriously melodramatic. But in the first decade of the 21st century, filmmakers looking for something new to offer audiences started to experiment with the genre.
Below are four very different highlights of modern Hong Kong romance films.
1. July Rhapsody (2002)
Directed by Ann Hui
Romantic angle: love among the over 40s


This novelistic tale – called Man at 40 in Chinese – directed by Ann Hui On-wah examines love, longing and regret among the over-forties. It is a mature look at romance that rings true, even though its meticulous pacing leads to lapses of attention in the viewer.
July Rhapsody is set in an accurate representation of Hong Kong just after the 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule. The main story is about a 40-year-old teacher (played by Jacky Cheung Hok-yau) whose 17-year-old student (Karena Lam Ka-yan) has a big crush on him.
He has been married to Ching (Anita Mui Yim-fong) for 20 years, and the spark has gone from their relationship. But he is still hesitant to commit to an affair.
Some spice comes from Mui, in her last on-screen performance, as his wife. She is bored to tears by him, even though she realises he is one of the good guys.
While he contemplates having an affair, she unexpectedly announces she has decided to look after her dying ex-lover, who was actually the couple’s teacher.

July Rhapsody takes a nuanced view of marital life, and the protagonists are all reasonable and realistic people. The main issue is that, as with many of Woody Allen’s now-dubious films, there is no reason for the girl to find the dull older man attractive.
Hui told the Post she was interested in exploring the feelings of some 40-year-old characters.
“It’s like you’ve gone past the midpoint of your life. You fear that you are getting old, you fear being outdated, you fear for your health,” she said.
“But mainly you fear how people will look at you, that they will think that you are past your prime.”
2. Love in a Puff (2010)
Directed by Pang Ho-cheung
Romantic angle: a smoking-hot love affair


Hong Kong filmmakers are always trying to think of new ways to tell a story and that has often involved taking a small quirk and making it a big feature of the plot.
Here that minimalist idea is smoking. Set against the ban on indoor smoking introduced in 2007, this quirky romance by Pang Ho-cheung has its characters finding love while looking for outside places to smoke.
It is an eccentric love story that nonetheless feels realistic. When smoking was banned indoors, smokers had to congregate outside, which meant all kinds of different people collided, and unlikely friendships were made.
Cherie (Miriam Yeung Chin-wah), a cosmetics sales girl, meets Jimmy (Shawn Yue Man-lok), an advertising executive, during such a cigarette break. He likes her, she likes him more, and they bond over their love of cigarettes.

They get close and then he gets cold feet and backs off. But a frantic search for cigarettes before a price increase finally brings them together.
Love in a Puff is an insightful view of how a love affair can develop. The two are not looking for romance, but they find some things in common through their chance meetings, start to hang out as friends, and then inevitably go further.
It reflects how relationships are formed in real life, where romance often happens more by chance than contrivance.
The feisty way that the characters talk to each other was praised by audiences as authentic.

“Pang says his films are rooted in the minutiae of everyday life,” Clarence Tsui wrote in the Post. “While essentially a love story, Love in a Puff also represents what the director describes as a ‘snapshot of Hong Kong social reality’.”
The earthy language and the film’s focus on smoking resulted in an unexpected adults-only category III rating.
3. Perhaps Love (2005)
Directed by Peter Chan
Romantic angle: song and dance – with love


The “Mandarin musicals” were once a prolific genre of Shaw Bros studios, and this ambitious work by Peter Chan Ho-sun tried to bring a contemporary feel to the form.
Perhaps Love falls short because the dance choreography and songs are not sophisticated enough to carry the film, but it is still a lush and enjoyable love story. The romance is simplified, but that is acceptable in a musical, and the would-be love affairs are presented in a novel and intriguing way.
“Hong Kong’s first bona-fide musical in more than a decade, this dark romance deserves special notice as the year’s most unique and luxurious pan-Asian production,” wrote the Post’s Paul Fonoroff.
The song-and-dance element is presented as a musical film being made within the film. The twist is that the characters in the musical mirror those of its fictional stars.

Jian Dong (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Sun Na (Zhou Xun) had a love affair 10 years ago, when they were both struggling to make it in the film industry. They both became famous, but in doing so, Sun has completely obliterated her past and refuses to admit the romance took place.
Now they are playing male and female leads in a musical which is coincidentally about a circus star who loses her memory and forgets her true love. Like the character he plays, Jian wants her to remember their real-life affair.
“Peter Chan specialises in making love stories and he’s more aesthetically inclined,” Zhou told the Post. “He portrays the cruelty of love and does it with feeling and poignancy.”
4. Love on a Diet (2001)
Directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai
Romantic angle: heavy petting – literally


Much wittier than its set-up suggests, this sweet romance is based around one joke – Andy Lau Tak-wah and Sammi Cheng Sau-man perform in prosthetic suits that make them look hugely overweight.
Despite being constrained by mountains of wobbly plastic, the duo’s charisma shines through, and a touching love affair emerges.
Johnnie To Kei-fung and Wai Ka-fai bring their superior filmmaking skills and prior knowledge of the romance genre to the project, and balance true love with well-choreographed slapstick comedy.
The prosthetics look good and never distract from the emotions.

“The fat suit was extremely heavy and my body felt like it was wrapped in an incredibly thick duvet,” Lau told the Post. “I felt that I had become another person. It felt weird but funny.”
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook


5 of the best things to do in Hong Kong this weekend, December 20-22

Cut red tape to ease the pain of Hong Kong’s bereaved

How filming Four Trails, about 298km Hong Kong ultra run, was almost as hard as the race

The 12 best Asian films of 2024 ranked, from The Last Dance to All We Imagine As Light

Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

4 Hong Kong romance films from the 2000s that are out of the ordinary

18. Love in a Puff

Jacky Cheung and Karena Lam in a still from July Rhapsody (2002), one of several mould-breaking Hong Kong romantic dramas shot around that time. Photo: SCMP

Jacky Cheung and Anita Mui in a still from July Rhapsody. Photo: SCMP

Miriam Yeung and Shawn Yue in a still from Love in a Puff (2010). Photo: Media Asia Distribution

Film director Pang Ho-cheung at an interview with the Post in 2010. Photo: SCMP

Takeshi Kaneshiro in a still from Perhaps Love (2005). Photo: SCMP

Sammi Cheng (left) and Andy Lau in a still from Love on a Diet (2001). Photo: Chinastar

Was remaking classic Hong Kong films like Police Story, A Better Tomorrow a good idea?

Ekin Cheng in a still from Return to a Better Tomorrow.

Lau Ching-wan (left) and Ekin Cheng in a still from Return to a Better Tomorrow, one of four remakes of classic Hong Kong films we compare to the originals.

Jackie Chan in a still from Police Story 2013.

Lau Ching-wan (left) and Ekin Cheng in a still from Return to a Better Tomorrow.

Jet Li in a still from Fist of Legend. Photo: Golden Harvest

Cecilia Cheung in a still from The Legend of Zu (2001).

Why the kung fu in Circle of Iron, from an idea by Bruce Lee, would have left him unhappy

David Carradine (left) and Jeff Cooper in a still from Circle of Iron. The 1978 movie was based on a script Bruce Lee abandoned before his death, but ended up a bizarre mix of inadequate kung fu scenes and faux Eastern mysticism. 

Lee and James Coburn in April 1973. Photo: SCMP

Lee and Stirling Silliphant at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport in April 1972. Photo: SCMP

Cooper and Erica Creer in a still from Circle of Iron.

Cooper in a still from Circle of Iron.

Carradine (left) and Cooper in a still from Circle of Iron. The latter trained for the movie with a cage fighter who claimed to have learned martial arts from an astral projection named Grandmaster Leong.

Carradine (right) in Kung Fu: The Movie (1986). Photo: Warner Bros

Cooper (left) and Christopher Lee in a still from Circle of Iron.

How Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok went from ‘gormless’ to ‘adequate’ to ‘terrific’ in movies

Aaron Kwok in a still from Somebody Up There Likes Me (1996).

Aaron Kwok Fu-shing in a still from The Bare-footed Kid (1993). Kwok’s early films garnered mixed reviews. We take a look at some of them.

Aaron Kwok won the best actor prize for his role in Port of Call at the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2016. Photo: Edward Wong

Once Upon a Time in China movies and the rip-offs rated

Jet Li as Cantonese martial arts legend Wong Fei-hung in a still from Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992), directed by Tsui Hark. Photo: Golden Harvest

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From July Rhapsody with Jacky Cheung to Love in a Puff with Miriam Yeung and Andy Lau in Love on a Diet, these movies offered something new


From July Rhapsody with Jacky Cheung to Love in a Puff with Miriam Yeung and Andy Lau in Love on a Diet, these movies offered something new.
