Asian Beauty Appreciation

Look For a Star aka Yau Lung Hei Fung is a 2009 Romance from famed Hong Kong director Andrew Lau who is most famous for the Infernal Affairs trilogy that he co-helmed with Alan Mak.

The star is the eminently bankable Andy Lau who has returned from doing a few period epics to a modern Romance in this feature. His co-star is Shu Qi.

The film  is set entirely in Macau, which is a mere 40 miles and 40 minutes away from Hong Kong via your choice of high-speed ferries like jetfoils, turbo-cats, jumbo-cats and other kinds of hovercraft. I must add that clearing immigration in both Hong Kong and Macau took almost as long as the rapid trip across the South China Sea. Macau is correctly called the Las Vegas of the East, and serves as a glittering backdrop for the story.

Andy Lau plays Sam Ching, a multi-billionaire developer. We hardly see him at work, but he owns the super-luxury MGM Grand Hotel in Macau. Though he’s an amiable guy besides being filthy rich, he has three ex-wives. You see, with that kind of fame and wealth, he’s always been unsure of whether or not his gal pals who show signs of being interested in him long-term, as in wedlock, as opposed to short-term as in one-night-stands, are interested in him or his wealth.

So Andrew Lau and his screenwriters  James Yuen and Ming Tang have fashioned a Hong Kong and updated version of the Richard Gere and Julia Roberts hit film, Pretty Woman. It’s not a remake, I’m just offering that title for comparison purposes. The difference is that LFAS has three sets of the romantic couples. Besides Sam and Milan (Shu Qi), we also have Sam’s chauffeur Tim (Ka-wah Lam) who has been fixed up with a beautiful divorcee, Shannon Fok (Xinyi Zhang) who has a cute daughter, Queenie, and Sam’s Corporate Secretary, Jo Kwok played by HK singer Denise Ho, who is paired with Hanyu Zhang as hotel maintenance man Lin Jiu.

So we have three romances to follow, like a juggler tossing balls in the air. The theme is whether people from different stratas or classes can ever find romance. Don’t expect anything new – after all this is a romance, the only thing that ever changes in these Man/Woman scenarios is how they get from A to B, when the happy times (B) change to rough times (C), and then how they get from C to D (they all lived happily ever-after).

Denise Ho as Jo Kwok

Hanyu Zhang as Lin Jiu, the honorable maintenance man

You’ll enjoy the meetings, the chases, and the good times that precede the bad times. Remember all of this is set in the sparkling new and glittering New Macau with occasional forays into the older and more colonial-looking Old Macau. Lau and Qi look great and deliver performances that they might have sleep-walked through, but didn’t.

Kah-wa Lam as Chauffeur Tim

Xinyi Zhang as DWC (Divorced with Child) Shannon Fok

In my view the acting honors go to Denise Ho as Jo Kwok and Hanyu Zhang as the good-guy handyman who just oozes honor and decency.

Telling the world he loves her

The last act is a bit cheesy. They use an all-too obvious gimmicky TV show, Follow Your Heart, where the guys go onstage and in front of the TV cameras to tell the world (the studio audience and the show’s TV viewers) why they and their romantic partners should give their floundering romances another chance at the gold ring.

The movie is entertaining, enjoyable, and even touching at times. The  pretty locations and attractive actors and actresses will make the nearly two hours go by without any of those dreaded dead spots. It is a little less polished than it could have been in spots, but on the whole, it is a feel happy rom/com that delivers a good time.