Love Battlefield (2004)

Moving beyond his run of standout horror flicks, director Soi Cheang has taken a fresh turn towards romance and crime territory with Love Battlefield. Niki Chow and Eason Chan star as a couple on the verge of breaking up when heavily armed mainland drug runners cross their paths and somehow bring them close again.

When their car is stolen and a trip to Europe is called off, Ka-yui (Chan) and Ching (Chow) head their different ways. Ka-yui soon spots the car at a factory building's carpark but gets picked up by the gang that stole it. A nurse, Ka-yui is forced to tend to their gunshot wounds and serve as driver. Ching soon clues in that her man has been kidnapped, gets on the trail with no help from the police and gets drafted into the drama herself.

Extreme on emotions but occasionally clumsy in realising plot twists and turns on screen, the ambitious Love Battlefield succeeds most in building compelling characters on both sides of the law. Ka-yui and Ching are launched with enough back-story to establish their fragile relationship and a theme of taking things for granted is eventually hammered home in their story. The mainland gang members meanwhile come across like a tight knit family and aren't simply written off in crude stereotypes.

Like in earlier horror movies Horror Hotline and New Blood, Cheang and his team show flair with strong atmospherics. Presented largely in a blue-tinted palette, tension builds well and rundown locations are taken advantage of. Intriguing editing adds to the appeal, including an odd recurring feature of crime scene snapshots inserted ahead of killings. Although a mainland-Hong Kong joint venture, Love Battlefield's main story is confined to Hong Kong while footage shot in China is limited to minor flashbacks.

Niki Chow, Cheang's leading lady from his bleak New Blood, puts in another promising performance in Love Battlefield and Eason Chan handles his shift to heroics well. Wang Zhiwen is classy as the gang leader and Qin Hailu makes a welcome return to Hong Kong cinema as his wife. Supports on the receiving end of poor side characters aren't able to shine in comparison, however, with Raymond Wong snagging an out of place comic part and Carl Ng's role neither convincing as a friend nor as a senior police officer.

Credits:

Directed by Soi Cheang
Produced by Joe Ma Wai-ho
Starring Eason Chan Yik-shun, Niki Chow Lai-kei, Wang Zhiwen, Qin Hailu, Raymond Wong Ho-yin, Carl Ng Ka-lung, Kenny Kwan Chi-ban