Love Will Tear Us Apart

The first film of Yu Lik Wai, this is the story of Ah Ying from Wunan in Mainland China, who arrives in Hong Kong with a tourist visa. She is called Miss Big North, which means a prostitute from the mainland. During her initiation to the fast-moving, fast-living, materialistic world of Hong Kong, she meets three other immigrants from China who are as lost as she is. Quin, who used to be a social dance teacher, now works as an elevator operator in a big Chinese restaurant. She has lost her son and her leg in a traffic accident. Her live-in boyfriend, Ah Jian, is an old fashioned villain who works in a porno video rental shop that is about to close. Ah Chun, a shy man who believes in discipline, repairs elevators, and the only fun in his life is playing bad jokes on radio call-in shows and frequenting brothels. The lives of these four lost souls are somehow interconnected. The film tries to look at Hong Kong, the symbol of capitalism, through the eyes of immigrants from China; the title of the film is taken from a legendary song of the eighties sung by Joy Division. The film is produced by Tony Leung, a Hong Kong star of the music world as well as cinema, who is best remembered for his roles in the films of Tsui Hark, Hou Hsiao-hsien, John Woo, and Wong Kar-wai. In competition at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, 1999.~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide