The Enigma of Love
Only the fairly good performances from Maggie
Cheung and Jacky Cheung make this absurd melodrama at all watchable. The
story line is extremely feeble right to the end.
Jacky is the manager of a gigolo bar in HK.
Nice work if you can get it. Women – married and single - come to the bar
for a little relaxation, romance and more so if they desire it. It costs
them money of course, but all the good things in life do. If males can
frequent places like this, why not females?
The police take a different view and they attempt
unsuccessfully to shut down the bar. So the police turn to Maggie, a tough
as nails cop, to help them out. In her first raid, she throws one fellow
through a glass door, knocks another one out and chases a third fellow
up a building wall and then jumps off it with him – like Mel Gibson in
Lethal Weapon.
Jacky, was away at the time of the raid – so Maggie
doesn’t know who he is – decides to get revenge on her. His plan is to
romance her and then make a fool of her. So he pretends to be a dying painter
and slowly burrows his way into her heart. Only one little kink in his
plan. As any of us men could have told him – to know Maggie is to love
Maggie and sure enough he falls for her. Now how do I tell her that I am
actually not dying, am not a painter and woo women for a living? That’s
a tough one. As one of the gigolos tells Jacky “Love is a game which you
can’t control”. Sort of like my tennis serve I guess.
To add to this dilemma is that Maggie’s supervisor
(Wilson Lam) has developed a bit of a crush on her and doesn’t take rejection
too well.
And that’s about it. Not exactly a run to your
video store for film. But if you have thought about going into the gigolo
business, this might be a useful primer for you!
