2/5 stars
Patrick Kong Pak-leung made his first film under the name Yip Lim-sum in 2004. It says as much about the dearth of directors making romantic comedies in Hong Kong as it does his target audience’s unsophisticated tastes that he is still getting to write, direct and produce his own features 20 years later.
While Kong may have shed his reputation as one of the city’s most critically derided filmmakers in recent years, there is often an immaturity to his characters and a crudeness to his narrative construction – as is again apparent in this latest effort.
They first meet when Bo and her friends pose as thugs to disrupt a karaoke party that Edward happens to be attending. Not only is he not put off by the childish antics involved in this revenge prank, but he sees fit to pay these amateurs a huge fee to sabotage the impending wedding of his estranged father.
As love blossoms between Bo and Edward, the film also introduces us to a few interesting side characters. These include Bo’s best buddy Keung (Leung Chung-hang), who runs a fruit stall with his father (Ben Yuen Fu-wah). Keung is secretly smitten with Bo, while his sister Yan (Hazel Lam Hei-tung), an aspiring singer, has a big crush on Edward.
For much of its runtime, Love at First Lie offers an undemanding and mildly diverting watch – if you can overlook Edward’s questionable attitude towards money. Only in a Kong story can you find a sports-car-driving Prince Charming who still asks his father for money and nobody feels the slightest bit embarrassed about it.
This is hardly a talking point by the end, however, as the film takes a sharp turn into tear-jerking territory in its last act. As Kong’s protagonists behave in ways that make no sense to anyone but the filmmaker himself, the moments of awkwardness that follow must be seen to be believed.
