Movie Review: Love in a Puff/志明與春嬌

I love Pang Ho Cheung. His films are witty, beautiful-looking, and wholly entertaining. He has surpassed Johnnie To (No more lingering, vengeful sparrows, please) as the director I will unquestioningly watch. Sad, then, that it took me so long to get to see this. But watching a movie about smokers in the midst of a rather profound chest and sinus infection seemed somehow inappropriate.

Love in a Puff/志明與春嬌is a rare gem of a movie. It opens with a sequence that grips you both for its content as well as its presence; it's an unnervingly odd opening to a film about two people who fall in love literally over an ashtray.

The dialogue is refreshingly realistic and open (hence the Cat III rating), the story mixes truth and, well, romance, very entertainingly, and I found it impossible not to like the characters.

I also found it impossible to stop staring at Miriam's purple hair, but that's irrelevant.

I realize I have created a rather vituperative reputation for myself by slagging off movies in this space. But part of the reason I get so mad is that I want to like more movies than I get to.Love in a Puff/志明與春嬌is completely likable and I was very, very glad, and grateful, to be able to walk out of a cinema feeling like I got more than I paid for.

As opposed to feeling like I got date-raped by the director/writer/film.I went to see this movie

twice. That's how good it is. So I am very glad to be able to exhort all of you thus:GO SEE THIS MOVIE! If we don't support movies that deserve it,

then we deserve the movies we get.