With a title like Love is Elsewhere, it’s easy enough to assume that director Vincent Chui’s third feature film after the Dogme-style Leaving in Sorrow (2001) and more conventional but still independent Fear of Intimacy (2004) will neither be the happiest nor most mainstream of movies. However, this visually stylish film’s Chinese title (which translates into English as Long Live Love) and array of pretty young faces – a number of which belong to Cantopop singers making their acting debut – give the lie to such an assumption.
Shot (by cinematographer Charlie Lam) and set in a largely yuppified-Soho, Love is Elsewhere revolves around three pairs of 20-something-year-olds. Personal and professional partners Ching (Sherman Chung) and Sung (Jason Chan) aspire to study further in Beijing in the near future. While they save up enough money, they run a cafe within spitting distance of the Central-Midlevels escalator where they lend an ear as well as dispense libations to lovelorn customers (though, as it turns out, they could do with some relationship counselling themselves).
One of the loyal consumers of the advice and drinks of these ‘unlicensed psychiatrists’ is Sing (Ken Hung), a 21-year-old restaurant delivery boy and aspiring singer who has the hots for Sandra (Yumiko Cheng), an art gallery owner six years his senior. She, however, already has a stockbroker fiancé (Patrick Tang) in tow. Increasingly Sandra is frustrated to find that her lover is often too busy to be around, even when she is in need of a man to care for and protect her. Consequently, she starts looking elsewhere for love, which gives Sing the feeling he has a real chance with her after all.
Medico Joe (Chau Pak Ho) is another who believes he has a chance for serious love. A serial womaniser who has left a trail of upset females in his wake, his eye and attention is caught by Kelly (Chelsea Tong) not long after he messily and publicly breaks up with Maggie from Canada (Charmaine Fong) in Ching and Sung’s cafe. Stating outright that she’s only in Hong Kong for a couple of months, Kelly plays hard to get but that only makes Joe more dogged in his pursuit of her. But as all of this movie’s six main characters discover, love can seem most elusive – and elsewhere – just when you think you finally have it in your grasp and all figured out.
Considering that many of those in front of the camera were making their acting debuts in Love is Elsewhere, they generally acquit themselves quite well. Something that undoubtedly helps though is how undemanding their parts are. Indeed, undemanding really is the word to describe this movie that doesn’t say much at all – never mind anything new – and that looks to be targeted specifically at a ready audience of fans of the up-and-coming idols. That audience will, no doubt, be satisfied enough by how good-looking those they admire appear in this movie as well as how much screen-time they get. Viewers looking for something substantial and challenging would be well advised to look elsewhere.
Yvonne Teh
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