Love in a Puff
★★★★☆
She realizes that her long-time boyfriend isn't the one (i.e. "arm channel" in Cantonese, "match" in English) as she wonders if the guy from the back alley during cigarette breaks might as well be Mr. Right.
Calling a 5-year-relationship off for a guy she only knew for 5 days because she doesn't feel right; this is Cherie (Miriam Yeung). Simple, direct, bold and daring to take chances: she defines what it means to be a local HK girl.
She goes to the usual smoking spot on Saturday to "bump into" Jimmy (Shawn Yue), and tells him "It's a date! It's a date! It's a date!". Her excitement for romance and her half-serious attitude are blurring and mixed in between the smoke she blows out, at every beat. When the two actually fall in love, she suddenly announces "I am 3 years older than you." "Actually...4 years." It is the accepting expression on his face that comforts her, that is more telling and heart-warming, and makes her keep walking down the road further, into a more fruitful, hopeful world, at least.
How do our two titular protagonists actually match each other? Why are they compatible? Sure, they are both smokers, sharing different brands of cancer sticks in the alleys, telling each other lame jokes and raunchy stories. But there are so many smokers in the world, why does it have to be "you"? They are texting/teasing each other every now and then, and a sense of connection begins to emerge. If anything, they have to match to feel for one another.
She has a boyfriend, but she has no belongingness until loneliness takes charge and forces her to see someone else. He has just been cheated, dumped and humiliated in public, and he feels lonelier than ever. Two people, each in their own unmatched channels, with their unfit lovers, but nevertheless the loneliest smokers in the world and they do not understand what love means. Speculation gets both of them nowhere.
The two spend a night in a love motel and she is touched by his words "we don't have to do everything tonight" But he explains to her afterwards, he wanted to have sex, but it was just that he couldn't. Sometimes, people are often moved by illusions and blinded by their own bubble. But the truth often shatters the noble image of the person we fall in love with. The most romantic scene in the film is finally dissolved and gone like the smoke, up in the air.
Pang Ho-cheung's films are always like that, it's not deep enough for you to take it seriously, but it's also not something you could overlook. All the events in the world seem mysteriously vague in his films, and whatever left in our heads is far more vivid than what is shown onscreen. Among all good things in the world, a touch of sweetness hung in the air, and the characters are healing, recovering, smoking and finding love is in the puff.
