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ALL
ABOUT LOVE
AKA:
N/A
Year:
2005 Reviewer: Andrew
Saroch
While
'Wait
'Til You're Older' was still packing in theatres in the
autumn of 2005, Andy Lau's second big feature of the year was
released. 'All About Love', though, is a seemingly less
commercial feature, meditating on love, mortality and missed
opportunities.
Successful
doctor Ko (Lau) finds the rigours of his profession keeps him
away from his devoted wife (Choi) and cause him to cancel
their nightly dinner arrangements on a regular basis. Such
actions come back to haunt Ko when his beloved is killed in a
tragic car accident and he is left with nothing but his
painful memories of their love for one another. Time passes
and the doctor is just a shell of his former self until he
saves Sam (Yeung), a woman who has been involved in a car
accident not far from where he is on duty. Ko is strangely
drawn to the patient and observes her recovery while learning
more about her from her doctor (Wong). When he then discovers
that Sam was the recipient of his late wife's heart after her
untimely death, he sees a way of recalling his past through
her.
'All
About Love' is a strange creation, at times emotionally ripe
and full of moving angst, then clinically distancing and icy.
The two threads naturally make an incongruous whole and the
finished article is therefore difficult to make a proper
connection with. Such a statement is uttered even before one
considers the dubious nature of the storyline; the idea of our
'hero' becoming obsessed with Sam due to her connection to his
wife - an action not commented on by any of the other
background characters - is an uncomfortable narrative pivot.
Director
Daniel Yu does manages to get professional performances from
his cast despite the story's problems. Andy Lau is not
especially stretched in his twin role, but a few of the more
powerful moments show him at his best; an ingenious flashback
to his daily routine with his wife is clever and strangely
touching, a relatively rare example of strong chemistry
between the leads. Lau's second character, Derek, is not
particularly fleshed out and so the majority of the dramatic
weight falls on Ko and the actor's portrayal of a man torn
apart by grief. Charlene Choi gives one of her better recent
performances, dispelling the fear that she'll be the clichéd
moody and frivolous harpy she invariably seems to be cast
as.
Her
overall appearance adds a certain weight to a production that
becomes needlessly impersonal, though the significant age
difference between her and Lau is constantly nagging at the
back of the mind. Yu manages to avoid melodrama, but in
so doing manages to turn the story into a faintly awkward
drama that ignores some gaping flaws of logic in the film. The
aforementioned compulsion of Ko could have been a tragic
portrait of how the loss of love can tear someone apart
emotionally, but it takes a deviation into a character
supposedly righting wrongs in the marriage of two people he
has no real connection with. That such decisions result in a
very comfortable ending where the eventual deception is
accepted without question is bewildering.
'All
About Love' is at its best when it allows the viewer to
develop empathy for the characters and understand the feelings
that are affecting them. When the main story takes centre
stage, the viewer's interest is likely to be lost and the
plot-holes difficult to reconcile. It therefore becomes a
diverting production rather than a truly absorbing one.
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