A movie to celebrate 10 years since the handover of Hong Kong, this film aims to document the difficulties Hong Kong faced immediately, from the Asian financial crisis in the late 90s to SARS.
Gigi Leung plays Joy, a powerful CFO of a hotel chain in Hong Kong, who sees her husband CEO replaced by a young mainland Chinese businessman. As the Asian financial crisis hits, relationships are strained and even the most trusted ones, both personal and business, are troubled.
Meanwhile, Fiona Sit plays the naïve assistant of Joy, falls for a cheat, yet has an admirer in the form of the flower shop boy next door.
In all honesty, the film fell into the typical trap in converting a novel into a motion picture. There are too many minor dramatic scenes that might work in describing real life in a novel, but simply doesn't add anything to a film lasting an hour and a half. The relationships between the characters seem too artificial, despite glimmers of chemistry amongst some of the actors, but generally, it just didn't work.
But my greatest gripe was that this film just relied so heavily on product placement such that it turned out to be one long advertisement. I understand that films need funding, but that just ruined any artistic value this film had (not that it really had much to start with).
I'm rather disappointed overall. Gigi Leung has proved that she can be a good dramatic actress, but sadly, her talent was wasted this time.
