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Review
by Kozo: |
Leon Lai steps behind the camera to co-write and "creatively
direct" Leaving Me Loving You, an uncommon Hong
Kong romance from director-writor Wilson Yip. Co-starring
Heavenly Queen Faye Wong, the film is a breakup and makeup
romance about two uncommunicative Shanghai yuppies who take
their sweet time to discover whether or not they want to
stay together. The film also stars modern Shanghai, which
is presented in a stunningly attractive, though somewhat
ridiculously bourgeois manner. It's great that the city
looks like such a nice place to visit, because it helps
compensate for the fact that the actual nuts and bolts of
Leaving Me Loving You—the supposed romance between
the lead characters—is underdeveloped and as passionate
as a brick. Oddly enough, the locations upstage the stars.
Lai is Zhou Qian, an outpatient
doctor working the streets of Shanghai from his SUV. In
the film's opening scene, he plans to break up with professional
party planner Xin Xiaoyue (Faye Wong) because, as he puts
it, "she moves faster than him." She does him
one better and verbally douses the relationship, leading
to an ominous voiceover from Zhou claiming he "wasn't
sure why they broke up." Fast-forward to a small time
later, and both are trying to get over their breakup while
making ends meet in their respective professions. Xiaoyue
picks up a lucrative new account in an elderly tycoon, whose
family is planning the birthday party to end all birthday
parties. Unfortunately, given the gentleman's quesionable
health, Xiaoyue has to pass all her plans by the family
physician. Verbal affirmation for those who didn't see it
coming: the family physician turns out to be Dr. Zhou. Now
might be the perfect opportunity for the two to rekindle
their romance.
However, they don't. Instead
of finding the opportunity to spend more time together,
the two ex-lovers spend their time heading in opposite directions.
Xiaoyue shuns Zhou, who despite his cool demeanor starts
to take on the disposition of a hurt puppy. Zhou, in turn,
begins to find some rekindled affection for Xiaoyue, though
it's never verbalized. Instead, we see it in Leon Lai's
puppydog eyes and his new fascination with following Xiaoyue
around. Previously the two were neighbors, but Xiaoyue moved
out for newer digs. When he discovers that Xiaoyue is gone,
Zhou seems disappointed. However, when she shows up on a
commerical jumbotron while he's eating lunch, he's able
to follow her and discern where she now lives. Then he moves
into the apartment across the street. We must pause to applaud
Zhou's stalking technique.
Except it's not played as
stalking. Zhou's choice to move close to Xiaoyue is presented
in the most innocuous, blithely romantic way possible. Basically,
he wants to be close to her and start anew, a fact he finally
relates when he rushes across the street to fix her door.
You see, there's a storm that literally blows her apartment
door off its hinges, which gives Zhou the opportunity to
run right over and get to work with his hands. He also drops
off medicine for Xiaoyue to fix that bad cough of hers,
and consistently treats her with respect and obvious care.
In turn, Xiaoyue plays the ice princess to the hilt, a stunningly
terrible fate considering it's Faye Wong at Xiaoyue's controls.
Then...nothing happens. That's right, nothing. The two go
about their lives, Zhou striking up a closer friendship
with the elderly tycoon, and Xiaoyue continuing to plan
the amazing birthday bash, complete with personally-appointed
fireworks display, massive highrise location, and an automated
chair which elevates its user a good ten feet above everyone
else. It's like a movie romance nirvana.
Leaving
Me Loving You is rare for Hong Kong Cinema because it
tries to evoke feeling cinematically, and not verbally.
Wilson Yip directs the proceedings at a slow, languid pace
which asks the viewer to discern what each character feels
via the tiniest snippets of dialogue or action—a commendable
approach considering the usual bombastic, over-verbalized
stuff which passes for romance in Hong Kong film. Furthermore,
the lovely camerawork and maudlin, but effective use of
montage (to the overused strains of Henry Mancini's "Moon
River") pushes the expected emotional buttons. The
impressive skyline, attractively paved streets, and upscale
commerical locations of urban Shanghai are the icing on
the cake—even though much of the details seem to be
reserved for Shanghai residents with obscene amounts of
money (Your own personal fireworks display? A chair which
elevates you ten feet above your peers? Who can afford that
crap?). With all the visual and audio tools at their disposal,
Leon Lai and Wilson Yip manage to portray their modern Shanghai
location as an enchanting, almost otherwordly urban playground.
Still, no amount of glossy
artifice can mask an empty story and characters. Zhou and
Xiaoyue are as frustratingly uncommunicative as they are
incredibly attractive. Much is supposed to be gleamed from
the awkward silence and slow makeup dance of the two ex-lovers,
but the result is a lack of chemistry between the actors,
and a painfully obvious lack of depth. While the slow pace
may be commendable in a Hong Kong Cinema historical sense,
it doesn't necessarily do much for the film. Leon Lai and
Faye Wong are certainly nice to look at, but neither does
much with their reduced dialogue and abundance of heavy
close-ups. Their characters are supposed to regret their
breakup, which can easily be ascertained thanks to the ample
opportunity given to the audience to figure it out. Given
their mopey behavior, the two are either hurt emotionally
by the loss of love or are simply dead people at their cores.
You decide.
The lack of character development
ultimately alienates us from them. Are we supposed to root
for Zhou and Xiaoyue to get together? If so, there needs
to be a better reason than the fact that they're played
by Hong Kong megastars. Given their characters, both actors
are convincingly remote, but neither is winning or seemingly
approachable. To make up for the lack of overt emotion,
we're given subplots and supporting characters to flesh
out the lead characters. However, the subplots are minimally
interesting, and sometimes questionably necessary. Zhou
encounters a beautiful traffic cop who obviously has the
hots for him. Whoopee. The past loves of the elderly tycoon
are also given great attention, but the purpose seems to
be little more than further montage opportunities and pseudo-emotional
cinematic interludes. This is all very great stuff to look
at, but it's as affecting as the birthday cards you got
last year.
Given the conscious storytelling
choices, it's obvious that Lai and Yip were aiming for something
different and uncommon, and they managed to pull it off.
Leaving Me Loving You is most definitely different
that than the typical Hong Kong film, and its subdued language
and sumptuous settings go a long way towards making it watchable.
At the same time, the story is trite and uninteresting,
and has to resort to a contrived, predictable ending which
is only affecting if seeing Leon Lai and Faye Wong get together
happens to be your heart's desire. Though it would be hard
to speak for the majority of the world's populace, conventional
wisdom seems to indicate that there are many things more
desirable than a Lai-Wong coupling. More desirable things
could be a sequel to Storm Riders, or the destruction
of all existing copies of Leon Lai and Wilson Yip's previous
collaboration, Skyline Cruisers. And hey, it may
not be saying much, but Leaving Me Loving You is
a much better film than Skyline Cruisers. (Kozo 2004)
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