Writer-director Pang Ho-Cheung revisits his famed romantic drama with the third instalment of his trilogy “Love off the Cuff”. It will be a fun outing at the movies, but don’t expect anything more than that.
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Writer-director Pang Ho-Cheung revisits his famed romantic drama with the third instalment of his trilogy “Love off the Cuff”, after 2010’s Love in a Puff and 2012 “Love in the Buff”, about the ups and downs the featured couple faces in a relationship.
The film picks up five years into ad-man Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie’s (Miriam Yeung) on-off relationship. Though living together for a few years now, they face new challenges in their relationship - a combination of insecurities, bleak future and a liberal childhood friend Flora (Jiang Meng-Jie) that comes into the picture. The couple is forced to confront their doubts and re-evaluate their status as lovers who are compatible and ready for the next step - a baby.
A trilogy is never easy to please, much less a rom-com focused on a couple who falls in and out of love. Pang manages to pull through with his usual quirky humour and antics, with exaggerated imagination stories in a glorious view. Needless to say, this film is as raunchy as its predecessors, with dirtier dialogues and sex-filled gags that may not satisfy all viewers. It seems like there is a lot of wordplay in the Cantonese language, but because the film has to be dubbed in Mandarin before it is able to be screened in Singapore, it loses the appeal of the language witticism which Pang is known for.
The film highlights the very real issues every couple faces - from the fear of having your partner snatched by a more eligible bachelor/bachelorette to the little habits of your partner that exasperates you to no end. The cute, courtship days are far over, and the obsession is starting to wear off, their trip to Taipei was supposed to right the wrongs, but it turned out to be a disastrous tipping point in their relationship.
Yeung and Yue have collaborated for many films, including the first two instalments of the trilogy, so it’s no surprise that their chemistry is undeniable in this movie. It’s always a pleasure to watch two actors play off each other with humorous banter as well as in intimate, emotionally-driven scenes and these two veterans hit off very well. If you were to look back at the first two instalments, you can clearly see that these leads have grown with their characters, maturing together with Jimmy and Cherie. The other supporting characters are a delight to watch, such as Paul Chun as Cherie’s dad, Jiang as the liberal childhood friend and Derek Tsang as Cherie’s brother.
If you’ve always been into Pang’s humour, then this movie is a suitable follow-up to his 2 successful sleeper hits. Apart from the outlandish gags and out-of-this-world jokes (literally!), Yue and Yeung are great in their roles as lovers at the brink of their relationship, but the story that supposedly reflects on their complexities and differences wasn’t quite drawn out as it could have been. It’s a fun outing at the movies, but don’t expect anything more than that.
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