RATING: 3.5/5
Pang Ho-Cheung's first Category-III movie, LOVE IN A PUFF, is something of a fascinating little premise. I mean, who could have guess that a movie about a small group of people smoking around garbage cans in Hong Kong's back alleyways (also commonly known as "hot potting") after the government has implemented an indoor smoking ban in 2007, is compulsively watchable?
After the Hong Kong government has implemented an indoor smoking ban in 2007, people are forced to carry on their smoking routine somewhere in the back alleyways. They are all come from all walk of professions, from office executive to hotel bellboys and pizza deliveryman. These smoking group (Cheung Tat Ming, Miu Fei Lam, Vincent Kok, and among others) spends time sharing crude jokes, horror stories and some gossip. Among them all, are these particular two people, Cherie (Miriam Yeung), a beauty product salesgirl and Jimmy, an advertising executive four years her junior. After they start exchanging each others' contact number and e-mail addresses, they slowly find themselves in a whirlwind of romance.
At the first glance, Pang Ho-Cheung's original story is pretty much sketchy and fairly thin at best. Everything in the movie is more like a series of loosely-connected vignettes. Fortunately, thanks to Heiward Mak's screenwriting contributions, the free-flow rhythm of the narrative structure is consistently entertaining and fascinating. The movie's highlight is no doubt its often hilarious, profanity-fueled dialogues that will keep the viewers enlightened with its playful Cantonese banters. Apart from that, Pang Ho-Cheung also successfully captures the realistic feel and look of contemporary Hong Kong's everyday life that is all socially relevant. Speaking of socially relevant, the movie feels very involving with today's average Hong Kong twenty something -- people are mostly fond of communicating each other via networking sites (e.g. Facebook, text messaging) and its kinetic portrait of fast urban romances.
Of course none of the movie might have work if not for its equally playful cast. No one could have thought that Miriam Yeung manages to land into something of a character that is almost out of her usual norm. Gone are her fluffy and immature role she has known for. Instead, she delivers her most mature romantic lead yet and her acting this time is certainly worth a praise. Shawn Yue is similarly credible as well, and watching them collaborating together is simply delightful.
While the movie does feel patchy at times, LOVE IN A PUFF remains one of Pang Ho-Cheung's most entertaining efforts, and it's highly recommended for those viewers looking for something out of ordinary.