Sausalito

Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai are among my favourite Asian actors, but any hopes I had that they would set the screen on fire again after their partnership in 'Comrades: Almost a Love Story' were soon dashed as it became clear this unassuming romantic comedy contains very little comedy, and not much romance either.

It starts off well enough. Ellen (Cheung) is a cab driver in San Francisco, raising a young son. Invited to a nightclub, she ends up having an uncomfortable one-night stand with Mike (Lai), who appears to be some kind of dot-com playboy millionaire. I say 'appears to be' as for some reason Lai underplays the role to such a degree that he seems bored most of the time - and this rubbed off on me.

Naturally the two hit it off and begin to learn more about each other, until Mike's business deals start to go sour, which disrupts his relationship with Ellen. Can true love overcome such a hurdle, etc.?

The opening half hour focuses on Ellen, and Cheung is more than capable of drawing us her lonely, struggling character. It's regrettable then that the focus shifts to Lai's rather unlikable character for the remainder of the film, and even more regrettable than the film starts to pile more and more unlikely scenarios on us right up to its (anti)climax.

I was actually sad I didn't like this flick. The setting is certainly different, it's well shot by Andrew Lau (although the musical score is horrible), and I usually enjoy Cheung and Lai. There was simply more NOT to like, though, including an uncomfortable and almost homophobic role for the wonderful Richard Ng (Wong Jing's influence, I suspect), and the wasting of Valerie Chow as a corporate femme fatale.

If you're a huge fan of the stars, you may see past the story and enjoy this one. It didn't work for me, though.

The Deltamac version looks decent enough, and the subtitles are OK, although definitely not perfect.