Comrades, Almost a Love Story

1996 "This is not so much a story about people falling in love, but rather of two young hearts trying their best not to fall in love with each other."
8.1| 1h58m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 05 December 1996 Released
Producted By: Orange Sky Golden Harvest
Country: Hong Kong
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Jun arrives in Hong Kong from mainland China, hoping to be able to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend back home. He meets the streetwise Qiao and they become friends. As friendship turns into love, problems develop, and although they seem meant for each other they somehow keep missing out.

Genre

Drama, Romance

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Director

Peter Chan

Production Companies

Orange Sky Golden Harvest

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Comrades, Almost a Love Story Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
Mjeteconer Just perfect...
Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
lasttimeisaw Peter Chan's COMRADES: ALMOST A LOVE STORY is a touchstone of Hong Kong cinema, a decade-spanning romance revolves around two Chinese main-lander finding their feet in HK from the bottom-line and shoved together by loneliness, camaraderie and simmering affection, yet their life trajectory would bifurcate by checkered fate, only to be reunited in a foreign land of New York City, ten years after their first encounter, serendipitously facilitated by the news of the sad demise of their favorite singer Teresa Teng (1953-1995).Li Xiaojun (Lai) and Li Qiao (Maggie Cheung), he is a wide-eyed Northerner arrives in HK to stay with his auntie (Tsu), doesn't speak Cantonese but his dream is to earn enough money to bring her fiancée Xiaoting (Yang) to HK and tie the knots; she, a Southerner from Guangdong Province who sports a fluent Cantonese (initially, she withholds her provenance from him), is more opportunistic and all she wants to be is a successful Hong Kong citizen, thus, the biggest barrier between them is their disparate nature of their goals, but that doesn't stop them from being friends and sometimes, bed-mates through the vicissitude of their lives. But the key is always in her hands, from a MacDonald girl, to various sidelines, it is the unethical job of a masseuse introduces Li Qiao to the triad boss Pao (Tsang), an ostentatious, chubby shorty whom she grows attached with, in Ivy Ho's organically unforced script, this reflects a limpid sensibility of don't-judge-the-book-by- its-cover philosophy, and this sidebar would culminate in a heart-string-tugging crescendo where Maggie Cheung enthralls us with a textbook exemplar of how to turn on the waterworks.Both Xiaojun and Li Qiao would attain their dreams in due course, but that doesn't automatically bring them the happiness they pine for, it is a familiar scenario of right people meet in the wrong time, which is well-integrated into their backdrop of an unglamorous view of Hong Kong at its time, a financial hub beckons a better life, but also rifles with geometrical and language discrimination (the Teresa Teng mythos), speculative business (dubious stock market), nostalgia (auntie's lingering on the beggar-belief history with William Holden) and an undertow of uncertainty during that consequential decade, before Hong Kong would be returned to its motherland in 1997 to bookend its colonial history. Burnished by Ivy Ho's top-notch diegesis (one particularly coup-de-maître comes when Li Qiao accidentally honks her car, which prompts Xiaojun into action of rekindling their affair, with Teresa's autograph emblazoned as an oracular signpost, it is one of those fortuitous incidents actually could become a game-changer in one's life), and two leads' deeply engaging performances, Leon Lai is thoroughly uncontrived in a very sympathetic and good-natured role without coming off as cutesy, and Maggie Cheung, the Hong Kong cinema goddess, one just cannot overpraise her magnificence and versatility (please, come back to the silver screen!), Peter Chan's outstanding romance saga eschews every nook and cranny to embarrass itself as a schlocky weepie and withstands its emotional punch up until its well-rounded cyclical coda, a knowing nod to the numinous methodology of predestination.
zhangjingjing It's been nearly 20 years since this movie came out and almost everything changed in China, but for me, this movie really describes the spirit and mentality and love and life of many Chinese in a quickly-changing world especially when they leave their hometown. The Chinese name of this movie is Tian Mi Mi, a very popular song at that time, one of the first things that brings some fresh air after the culture revolution. And there are many details and nuances in this movie that demonstrate that this movie is not just about love or relationship or romance, it's about life, the struggles of people between reality and dream, love and lost, etc.It tells me that what makes Chinese people still alive and happy after all those tragedies in life. Look forward, don't look back. Maybe it's related to the atheism of most Chinese, we know that 'this too shall pass" for everyone and everything, so we try our best to live, to love, to forget, to move on.
divemaster13 "Comrades, Almost a Love Story" is one of my all-time favorite movies, of any genre. It is hard to express just how wonderful and moving this romance is. Enough to touch even the most jaded and cynical of hearts."Comrades" swept award after award upon its Hong Kong release. For example, see the list for the Hong Kong Film Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director (Peter Chan), Best Actress (Maggie Cheung), Best Supporting Actor (Eric Tsang). Plus Best Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume & Make-up Design, and Score.The story covers a 10-year span. In 1986, Li Jun (played by Leon Lai) arrives in Hong Kong right off the proverbial turnip truck. He's a Mainlander from some rural community up north. He has come to Hong Kong to make some money in order to eventually bring his fiancée down and get married. This task is made difficult because he is rather naive and more importantly, doesn't speak a word of Cantonese. His best hope is to work menial jobs until he can learn the language and better his circumstances.One day he goes into a McDonald's to pantomime his way into ordering a hamburger. The cashier, Li Qiao (Maggie Cheung), is arrogantly frustrated with his inability to speak Cantonese and tells him he'd better get with the program because in the hustling capitalism of Hong Kong, people like him don't stand much of a chance. He is drawn to her because she can speak to him in Mandarin and she is very cute. "Are you from the Mainland, too?" he asks. "Of course not!" she says. (It's hard to move up in HK with that stigma attached.) Anyway, they end up spending time together. She steers him toward an English language class. Out of friendship? Well, not really, because she gets a cut ($$) for every Mainlander she delivers. She also has him running errands and such for her.They grow closer. At one point she confesses that she too is from the Mainland (but from nearby Guangzhou Province, not from up north hicksville). He replies "I've pretty much known that all along." "They why did you let me take advantage of you?" "I needed a friend and you're the only one I have." They become lovers of convenience and proximity. He still loves his fiancée and sends her letters, but she is distant and Li Qiao is near.So far, this is the first half hour of the film. How it plays out from here is the magic of this movie. The backdrop of the next 10 years is the ever-changing Hong Kong as it prepares for the 1997 handover. Fortunes made, fortunes lost. Li Qiao and Li Jun go their separate ways, but find themselves back in each other's lives from time to time. She meets someone else and he ends up marrying his fiancée. But still their feelings for each other can never be suppressed entirely.I hope I have not made this seem like a typical boy-meets-girl romance. It is so much more than that, and yet without all the trappings you might expect from a big-budget Hollywood film. There are no wisecracking sidekicks, no cute kids making fools out of the adults, no slapsticky miscommunications. Just these two wonderfully engaging people and the lives they lead and the difficult choices they make.I know I am a romantic softie. A number of movies cause my eyes to get all misty. I've seen "Comrades" at least 6 times and I still get leaky. I know what happens, I know how it ends – there are no plot surprises. Yet every time I watch it I can't help but be absorbed by the acting, the pacing, and the emotional impact of the story of these two people.
DevilFis This movie is a classic. Maggie Cheung, in what I consider her best work, is simply brilliant as the young Chinese woman who emigrates to Hong Kong in search of a better life. While it is a classic love story, Peter Chan has done a fantastic job of making it extremely fresh and captivating. The script is very well-written, and the rest of the cast and crew perform admirably. But it is Maggie who steals the show, and for this role she deservedly won Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards.