Movies You Ought To See: Comrades: Almost a Love Story
Back to Banana Oil
This entry was posted at
20:48 GMT on 14 June 2003
I know I take an overly authoritative tone in many of my posts, and believe it or not, I try not to oversell anything to you, dear reader, but... it is difficult for me to express my love of this film without lapsing into endless superlatives. I shall do my best to refrain.
The original title, transcribed from Mandarin, is Tian Mi Mi, which translates to, roughly, "Sugar is Sweet." This was the title of a very popular song in the 1970s and would be instantly recognized as such in Hong Kong and China. That association of the title with the song, of the story in the movie with the singer, Teresa Tang, is the entire reason for that title. Since we in the west have no reason to make that association, the english title is more appropriate.
It is indeed almost a love story, several times, but never quite becomes that. A love story happens, but that's not this story, this is before. And the "comrades" part? Well, both the main characters are from Red China, trying to make their way in the hyper-capitalist realm of Hong Kong in the mid-1990s.
We begin with Li Xiao-Jun, played by Leon Lai, arriving on a train from Guandong (Canton) Province into Hong Kong. He's a real rube, has never even seen an escalator before. He's come here to earn enough money to marry the girlfriend he left back home, and we follow some of his travails as a hick in the big city. Until he meets the bewitchingly beautiful, self-assured, driven Li Chiao (Maggie Cheung, who in addition to being one of the finest actresses in the world, is also on my short list for most beautiful woman alive).
Chiao is working in a McDonald's when Xiao-Jun meets her, but she also has a bewildering array of jobs/businesses/ways of making money on the side. (There are several amusing trips to the ATM to check on her account. Cheung's expressions in these shots are superb.) She ropes him into one of her pursuits, and off they are, pointedly not pursuing a weird relationship that he can never quite figure out.
There are many side characters who fill out the cast, including Xiao-Jun's elderly aunt, who is in still in love with William Holden — she met him once when he was shooting Love is a Many Splendored Thing in Hong Kong — and the singer of "Tian Mi Mi," Teresa Tang, who shows up in one scene, and whose life affects the course of the film in unexpected ways.
The first business pursuit is a stand selling recording by Teresa Tang. Her songs, you see, are naive and saccharine and nobody in Hong Kong likes them, but everyone from the mainland loves them, so our two entrepreneuers decide that they'll make a fortune selling to rubes like they once were, mere weeks ago.
They don't sell a single one. Nobody wants to be seen as a hick from the mainland for buying one.
Over the course of the film, but naturally at different times, each realizes that (s)he loves the other. But life keeps getting in the way. They both get married, but not to each other, and it is a mark of how good this movie is that both spouses are fully fleshed–out characters essayed perfectly by Elvis Tsang and Kristy Yeung. They both move out of Hong Kong, and end up in New York.
Yet in New York, they do not meet (though it's a close thing).
That's how sincere and honest this film is.
I can't call this a happy movie, per se, but it always leaves a warm and tender feeling afterward, and it beautifully portrays two good souls searching each other out in the world, and finally — maybe — finding each other at last.
Comrades pulled in a boatload of awards in Hong Kong and Taiwan, including at least one Best Actress statue for Maggie Cheung (well-deserved, I might add). The entire cast is stellar, including the sometimes wooden, always stoic Leon Lai. And if you don't know the name Elvis Tsang, you need to rent more Hong Kong movies. A lot more. The guy is amazing.
The director, Peter Chan Hoh–San, only got financing for this film by agreeing to do a sequel to his comedy He's a Woman, She's a Man, and shooting the two simultaneously. He also reportedly paid part of Maggie Cheung's salary out of his own pocket. And thank goodness he did.
HKFlix.com is selling Comrades: Almost a Love Story on DVD for only $14.99. It's a worthy purchase, being the kind of movie that you want to return to over and over again.
I'm sure that NetFlix also stocks a few copies, if you don't want to commit to purchasing.