A Moment of Romance III
Reviewed by YTSL
The 1996 entry of a trio of works that bear
the same title and have Wu Chien-Lien as the lead actress -- but have her
playing different characters in each of them and have had her appearing
on different sides of a “hailing from the right versus wrong side of the
tracks” romantic equation -- appears to be the least popular among Hong
Kong film fans as well as have come under the heaviest criticism
by internet and other movie reviewers. I thus was rather surprised
to learn (via the HKMDB) that the old-fashioned as well as melodramatic
feeling presentation whose Chinese title translates into English as “As
If Heaven Has Love III: Flames of War Beauty” -- and was directed, not
just produced, by Johnnie To -- actually outperformed its Benny Chan directed
1990 and 1993 predecessors at the local box office.
For the record: The almost overpoweringly orchestral
music-filled A MOMENT OF ROMANCE III grossed about HK$1.5 million more
than the generally more modest effort which saw the first pairing of Andy
Lau and the then cinematic debut-making actress whose is known to Cantonese
speakers as Ng Sing-Lin; and raked in some HK$5.5 million in excess of
that which teamed up Wu Chien Lien with Aaron Kwok. After viewing
it, I strongly suspect that this period offering that’s set in rural as
well as urban portions of China that are at war with the Japanese -- and
which really does look visually sumptuous, no doubt due in large part to
its cinematographer being the masterful Poon Hang Sang as well as because
it does boast a couple of physically attractive stars plus places them
amidst some very photogenic locales and sets -- also cost a fair bit more
than the earlier AMOR works; and not only because of its main male character’s
preferred modes of transportation being planes as well as a jeep and a
chauffeur-driven limousine rather than motorbikes or mass transit.
A MOMENT OF ROMANCE III’s main (love) story effectively
and rather inauspiciously begins on a rainy day in 1938, with a wounded
Chinese Air Force Lieutenant Lau Tin Wai (who gets played by Andy Lau in
dashing mode) crashing his bullet-riddled plane into a corn-field and narrowly
avoiding smashing into an eighteen year old local female who had just finished
praying to the gods to bring the potentially harvest-ruining heavy downpour
to a halt. What with the sun having come out soon after the military
pilot’s sudden arrival into her very remote neck of the woods, Ting Siu
Wo (who is portrayed by the sufficiently young-looking as well as perennially
sweet-faced Wu Chien-Lien) sees the nearly as quickly convalescent Tin
Wai as having had something to do with the miraculous-appearing change
in the weather, and consequently undertakes to make him feel welcome and
comfortable during what amounts to an enforced stay in the area for him
(until he gets his plane back in fly-able condition plus manages to (re-)establish
contact with some others who are actively engaged in the war effort).
Despite the patriotic Tin Wai clearly hankering
to get back to fighting the good fight against the Japanese invaders of
his beloved motherland, he ends up being unable to help but enjoy the latest
situation he found himself in and bathe in the warmth of the sun plus the
warm affection that is showered on him by Siu Wo and, to be fair, pretty
much all of the other residents of Double Mountain Village. Before
too long however, with such as the return of a group of men who had temporarily
ventured outside of their home territory to look for work and such, his
rural idyll gets interrupted and then brought to a close. One reason
for this is that Tin Wai is recognized by them to be a scion of a very
wealthy, high class family (in whose presence it is felt that people ought
to stand on ceremony). Another spanner thrown in the works -- and
specifically into Tin Wai and Siu Wo’s hitherto innocently friendly but
increasingly close relationship -- is that one of the recent male returnees
to the community happens to be not only the son of the village headman
but also the individual who the now obviously grown-up Siu Wo was designated
from childhood to marry.
A series of other events soon contribute to Tin
Wai being at least briefly designated as persona non grata in the previously
welcoming village (and thereby complicating A MOMENT OF ROMANCE III’s otherwise
pretty straightforward as well as simple plot). Although this state
of affairs actually only ended up strengthening the emotional bonds between
Tin Wai and Siu Wo, this unlikely pairing -- of rich urban fly-boy and
illiterate as well as poor peasant female -- are then compelled to part
when he gets successfully contacted by other Chinese air force personnel
and ordered to return to his squadron’s Wushan base. Some short hours
after Tin Wai’s looking to have permanently departed from her community
and life though, Siu Wo ends up making tracks of her own to the far away
big city that happens to be Tin Wai’s hometown.
In Wushan, Siu Wo not only successfully re-encounters
Tin Wai but also meets -- in varying circumstances -- a prostitute cum
apparently archetypal “air force pilot’s woman”, other members of Tin Wai’s
not particularly respected -- as it turned out -- squadron (whose oft brooding
captain is played by the ever hunky Alex Fong), and his strong-minded societal
pillar of a widowed mother -- and receives a mixture of receptions (ranging
from surprisingly positive to expectedly negative) from them. All
in all, the arguably too nice-for-her-own-good young woman appears to rather
disconcertingly and discomfortingly find that there really isn’t that much
time and opportunity in that city for romance or, seemingly, even genuine
love of more than one’s country...Or/but does she really? Suffice
to say at this point that I wouldn’t rule out it being so that the manner
in which A MOMENT OF ROMANCE III concludes might well have had a significant
role in this watchable -- but not all that special, really -- effort enjoying
greater commercial success than the two previous offerings with which it
significantly differs in more than just temporal and geographic settings.
My rating for the film: 6.