Sex, Love, and Hate
(Wu yi, 1974)

Chu Yuan

Hong Kong

89 min, color, Mandarin (English subtitles)

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

This film should have been called Sex, Love, and Hate Without the Sex and Hate. For a rather simple melodrama, the catchy title is purely a ploy to generate interest that "Three Love Stories with Unhappy Endings" probably would not. But that's all that this film is: a set of three relationships that are only tangentially connected because the three women are friends. There is nothing wrong, of course, with a film like that provided that it has something worth saying. Or provided it's at least acted out competently. The film is one out of two. The stories are nothing spectacular but the acting is top-notch and almost makes the price of admission worth it.

Obligatory shot of Hsu Feng	Girls of the world, unite!

This is a film about three women who search for love in all the wrong place. Or at least it would appear that way. Each is prepared to make a lot of sacrifices for romantic reasons, in the name of the one true love they ever think they will experience, and as a result all three suffer tremendously, mostly because none of the men are actually worth their sacrifices. It's not that the man are bad. Far from it, I am sure many would consider them all positive characters with minor flaws that, unfortunately, prove fatal for their relationships. With the possible exception of Lu Jun (Yueh Hua), however, I would beg to differ. This, I think, is the major problem with the film: it lets the men off the hook and paints the doomed loves in a fatalistic sort of way. In the end, one is supposed to sigh, shrug, and say the high-minded equivalent of "Shit happens."

Leave or I'll expose your cheap underwear	Gratuitous shot of Ching Li

But let's see what the hoopla is all about. The first story is about a girl by the name of Yao Yao (played by the incomparable Hsu Feng). She is from a relatively poor family and in love with the equally poor Li Ji (Tsung Hua). Her family objects to their relationship for the all-time favored reason that they want to use Yao Yao as their ticket out of poverty. She must use her undeniably good looks to attract some rich guy, marry him, and then provide for herself and her parents. She rebels, leaves home, and ends up working as a hostess at a night club to make ends meet while Li Ji can scrape together enough money or courage to ask her to marry him. She is a proper girl in a somewhat conservative way (wants to remain a virgin until her wedding night) which may be a bit surprising considering that she's run away from home.

Lovers Set #1	Gratuitous shot of Yueh Hua

The second story is about Bai Mei (Lily Ho) who is not only beautiful but quite aware of the advantage her looks can give her in life. She uses her natural gifts to attract men and get them to provide stuff for her: money, house, whatever. She is living the good life, at least when it comes to material things. She is quite unapologetic about it too even if her protestations seem a bit defensive. One night she literally bumps into Lu Jun (Yueh Hua) who fesses up to being relatively unencumbered by any financial responsibility and then asks her out. To their mutual surprise, she agrees and eventually finds herself in love with a man who her supposedly materialistic mindset should have rejected out of hand.

Lily Ho makes one forget the sunset	Lovers Set #2

The third story is about Zhu Dai (Ching Li), a flight attendant who has recently ended an affair with a married pilot and has decided to renounce love forever. Of course, things don't quite work out that way because on the first trip outside her room she has car trouble, a handsome stranger fixes her engine, and she ends up at a candle-light dinner with him. He turns out to be the famous Formula-1 driver Du Zhichao (Ling Yun), and she develops an attachment for him which quickly blossoms into love, a realization she is forced to make when he has an accident during a race and she has to confront for a second the possibility that he might have died.

Are you sure you know your man?	Will not end in sex

In other words, three rather touching love stories. The woman who supposedly has left all such romantic nonsense behind finds herself spending an entire night wandering around the city with this man who represents everything she so proudly claimed to have shunned before. She professes to believe that money is everything but her actions clearly belie that. Then there's the woman who has suffered tremendously in a doomed relationship and has barely gotten enough strength to break it off (as usual, the married guy is not exactly eager to make the first step). She knows she was wrong (at least that's what she says, but I wonder why---it takes two to make an adulterous affair), but her defense is that she just could not help feeling that way. Why she thinks she can command herself never to fall in love ever again is a mystery. And, of course, there's the naively and touchingly romantic "love conquers all" girl who believes that as long as she and her man stick together, they will prevail over adversity, both familial and financial.

Tsung Hua taught not to spoil the milch cow	Lily Ho can't believe the bastard/wimp

Not surprisingly perhaps, it is this latter story that begins to unravel first, apparently under the hammer blows of an unforgiving and unfair world. True, Li Ji gets his sissy ass kicked outside the bar for dating another's "milch cow" (that's how the club owner referred to Yao Yao). They also vandalize his apartment and nearly give his mother (Ouyang Sha-fei) a heart attack. But it's not the threat of bodily harm that undoes him. It's listening to his mother's advice. On the face, it's all perfectly sensible: he will never make enough money to provide for Yao Yao, so perhaps he should just let her go so she can have a chance for a better life that she will never have with him. In other words, her parents would have agreed with his mother completely.

Good luck on your gold digging endeavor	If he won't have me, perhaps my virginity?

And what does that little weasel do? After his girlfriend ran away from home to escape the pressure to dump him; after she took up a rather demeaning job letting fat old men grope her at the club; after she has resolved to remain chaste until she is married so at least that little piece of symbolism helps her preserve her dignity and sense of self-worth; after she has even endured her mama's boy of a boyfriend lie to his mother about what she does. After taking all of that, she has to suffer the ultimate injury: her boyfriend will dump her without even talking with her. This guy, in his self-centered high-mindedness, is going to do her a favor without even bothering to inquire if she is willing to go along with it. He is going to leave her and not even explain to her his motivation. It is clear why he would not even attempt to do it: she is apt to object and make the "wrong" choice by preferring to remain with him in destitution.

Lovers Set #3	Some revolutionary activity

To add insult to injury, he breaks it off abruptly and refuses to explain himself to her or even console her when she comes to see him one last time before getting married to some rich guy. She seems to think that he's dumped her because she would not have sex with him. Or perhaps she tries to use the last weapon at her disposal. Or perhaps she just wants to lose her virginity to the guy she loved. Whatever the reason, she offers herself to him and although the guy has the decency to refuse to take advantage, it does not make his unilateral "favor" to her any less insulting. Whereas this sort of abject self-denial that Li Ji goes through can score highly in some circles, in my book he is not worth her love. Love is about a partnership, not about one person charging blindly in some direction he believes is right.

Yueh Hua applying medicine internally	Saying good-bye

The race-car driver is only marginally better. He is married to a filthy rich heiress who lives in London but who refuses to divorce him (for the sake of her family's honor). To his credit, Zhichao refuses to accept a rather generous monetary offer designed to pay him to maintain the facade of a respectable marriage. Instead, he runs off to Hong Kong and has an affair with Zhu Dai. There's nothing wrong with a guy wanting to ditch his wife, especially if she's like Yingni (Karen Yip): obviously not even liking him that much, and only wanting to torture him. But why keep such a secret from his new lover? Why deceive her and, through this action, deny her a choice? It's not like he is unaware of her past, her affair with the other married man, and the pain it had caused her. Why not come clean? Obviously, because she would have nothing to do with him if he did. So instead he weaseled his way into her heart hoping that she will forgive him when the truth inevitably comes out. Yet another instance of male self-gratification causing the downfall of an amorous woman.

Can he let a woman buy him a car?	Gratuitous shot of Hsu Feng

Of the three men, Lu Jun is marginally the most acceptable, if only the cause of his leaving is at least not about himself. He turns out to be a revolutionary for an unspecified cause in an unspecified country. He has a prior commitment, so to speak, and a calling that many, this reviewer including, would consider worthy and higher than, well, getting another pretty broad in the sack or feeling virtuous and superior by laying waste to a woman's heart. The problem, as usual, is with keeping a secret. Withholding information means that one does not trust the other to make the "right" choice. It is blatant in the first two stories, but it's also the same here. In fact, it is pretty obvious what choice Bai Mei would have made---she insists on helping him when he gets in trouble. Of course, she cannot then sail away with him to run a revolution, so she is forced to remain behind and having to content herself with his vague promise to return, something that no aspiring revolutionary can truly promise.

Obligatory shot of Ching Li	The lover and the wife

So regardless of what the back cover claims, this is not a film "about Hong Kong society's differing views on love and what women want from love." I am sure that's what the director and writer thought they were writing but they should have been aware of their own biases when they did so. The result is an indictment of the total lack of trust that can kill any relationship, no matter how romantic. The tragic thing is that this lack of trust does not come from the usual corner (as in jealousy, for example) but arises from a skewed perception of what constitutes appropriate behavior. And this distortion is most certainly caused by gender bias imposed by heavily masculine society. The tragedy is that the men believe to be acting in the women's best interests when they are, in fact, destroying them utterly. A valid conclusion that is in no way diminished by the fact that the film makers did not intend to draw it.

Women drivers suck!	Lily Ho can't believe another bastard/wimp

With excellent performances all around, the film is a joy to watch despite the plodding pace and the somewhat pedestrian directing. The Celestial DVD is very nice too. The video is presented at 2.35:1 and is anamorphically enhanced. There are no damages to the print that I could see. The mono Mandarin soundtrack works fine (although you may wish it did not---the title song gets grating pretty quickly, and it does not help that they throw it in every ten minutes or so). The English subtitles had no problems barring the occasional awkward turn of phrase. The extras are the usual lot: talent files, trailers, and a gallery of stills. A good film which one should not miss, if nothing else, then for the performances of the six leads who all acquit themselves admirably.

January 1, 2006