The Love that is Wrong
For some reason that now escapes me I was expecting
a sleek, stylish Cat III thriller with a bit of trash and a twist thrown
in. The twist being that it revolves around a lesbian couple in HK – an
unusual subject for HK films to deal with. The film does in fact have a
lesbian as the main protagonist – but my guess would be that the Lesbian
Alliance of HK (if there is such an organization) didn’t invite the makers
of this film to their annual dinner! This film is in fact not particularly
sleek nor stylish nor even much of a thriller – but it most certainly is
trashy.
I was wondering whether I had rented the wrong
film at the beginning of the film as it begins with a camera crew doing
a mattress commercial for TV. When the director calls “cut” – the couple
decides to continue and take the mattress for a dry run – or perhaps that
should be a wet run. Huh? What the hell was that about? I am still not
really sure but from time to time the film shifts focus away from the protagonists
and takes a little excursion down Cat III highways and byways. One takes
place in a boxing ring with one fellow and three girls – doesn’t sound
at all fair to me – poor guy!
Eventually after the couple have done testing
the mattress for firmness, the real movie begins. Now I am not really sure
if this was any better but here goes the gist of it. The lovely Ellen Chan
is a manager at a company and is carrying on a clandestine affair with
one of her workers – one of the female workers I should add. Its all very
lovey dovey until the partner decides that the two of them should have
a child to raise together and she has a male picked out from work to do
the deed. People in HK always seem to have so much more fun at work than
we do here in the States!
Apparently there are no sperm banks in HK so she
seduces the man – and before you know it she is expecting. But you know
how it is once you have been with a man (well actually I wouldn’t!) there
is no going back to satin and lavender! Needless to say Ellen doesn’t take
kindly to this – fires the guy from work (do I hear lawsuit?) – and soon
the landscape is littered with dead bodies. Our little sweet Ellen it turns
out is a complete psycho!
A Peeping Tom ends up drowned at the bottom of
her pool and a couple having sex by the pool end up sliced and diced into
the pool. A note to myself: set up a dead people pool removal business
in HK someday – lots of people end up dead in pools in HK it seems.
Soon Ellen meets a nice guy (Lin Wei) – and
oh no – after one little frolic between the sheets – she too is turned
to the dark side and thinks - hey that was kind of fun! What have I been
missing all these years? Not exactly a PC film these days – but what HK
films are?
All this was idiotic – but didn’t really bother
me – it was just the lack of very much interesting going on that put a
dull damper on this film. Even the Cat III scenes have little energy in
them – and they are so clearly included for strictly Cat III reasons with
little connection to the film. For those Ellen Chan fans, I should warn
you that though she looks great in this film – and quite sexy at times
– I am reasonably sure after close and arduous study that a body double
was used in her sex scene. I am not sure why though because she clearly
showed what assets she had in the film Fatal Love. So all in all a very
disappointing film.
My rating for this film: 5.0