San Francisco International Film Festival 20 April - 04 May 2006

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Teardrops trickling down divine cheekbones, supermodels flaunting couture on the catwalk, petal-perfect flower arrangements, lemon-yellow sunsets, rainswept walks through cemeteries and decadently high-thread-count sheets... that’s what love is all about in this deliriously melodramatic Hong Kong hit. Not to mention slow-motion car crashes, artfully shattered champagne flutes, goateed doppelgangers, plush hospital suites and cell phones that ring to the tune of “Greensleeves.” Surface is depth in an antiseptic world of computer-generated effects, and whereas love once meant never having to say you’re sorry, here it means stalking the transplant recipient of your dead wife’s heart. When good doctor Ko’s adorable wife Zi-Qing perishes in an auto accident, he becomes obsessed with Sam, now in possession of Zi-Qing’s ticker. Complicating matters further, Sam’s estranged husband, Derek, is the spitting image of Ko, and apparently women with weak hearts are easily duped by look-alike lotharios—especially when both are played by Andy Lau. Ignore the creepy implications of this bizarre love rectangle—in which women cling more tightly to their laptops than to their lovers, and the deceased live on in flashbacks while exclaiming, “The TV is broken; I've lost my purpose in life!”—and enjoy an over-the-top romance replete with doomed lovers dancing in a winter wonderland to Pachabel’s “Canon.” Reminiscent of 21 Grams in plot but spinning off in its own peculiar world of flagrantly unbelievable coincidences, second chances and the whims of fate, All About Love proves that the heart is resilient above all things.

—Steven Jenkins

Copyright © 2006 San Francisco Film Society