Love Will Tear Us Apart (1999)

For viewers hankering for something different out of the 1999 HK cinema trench, Love Will Tear Us Apart is welcome relief. Nelson Yu's directorial debut journeys through Mongkok district to focus on mainland immigrants. The Reclamation Street environs - sordid and grimy, lurid and neon-lit - are home to Ah Jiang (Tony Leung); a porno video dealer and part-time dance hall worker. When his incapacitated lover/housemate (Lu Li-ping) returns briefly to China, Ah Jiang meets a prostitute (Wong Ning) working on a tourist visa. The two are drawn together. In unfolding the drudgeries of the threesome, as well as those of a lone elevator repairman (Rolf Chow) and 7-Eleven clerk, director Yu offers up a glimpse of mainlanders caught up in Hong Kong.

The direction is thankfully anonymous - directorial indulgences are kept to an absolute minimum and the focus is left fairly, and squarely, on a quality cast. The departure of Wong Ning for China at the end gives this slow-moving film a place to go by default, leaving an air of ambiguity over the characters that remain in HK... staying for what? Love Will Tear Us Apart was the only HK film placed in the Cannes '99 competition line-up, and the second in the festival's history. Though generally snubbed by the international press at the time, Yu's film is certainly worth a look to experience some confident low-budget local indie film-making and to catch a view of a community neglected by mainstream Hong Kong cinema.

DVD information: Released by Worldtrade Entertainment, this DVD release offers a picture and sound quality that compares well to the cinema presentation. The letterboxed picture covers the necessary ground visually - flipping between the lurid and the bleak - and the 5.1 sound mix remains crude and clear. The disc divides the film into six chapters and provides a plot synopsis as an added feature (though it is merely the Chinese text taken from the back of the box). The disc is packaged in a blank keepcase held within an attractively laid out and nicely printed slip case.

Credits:

Directed by Nelson Yu Lik-wai
Produced by Tony Leung Ka-fai and Stanley Kwan
Starring Tony Leung Kar-fai, Wong Ning, Lu Liu-ping and Rolf Chow