Now You See Love, Now You Don’t

“The coolest actor in the world” (Los Angeles Times), Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-fat may be most famous for such John Woo–directed bullet operas as Hard Boiled and The Killer, but he shows off his Cary Grant–like romantic charm in this breezy screwball comedy by Hong Kong’s most celebrated directing-screenwriting couple, Alex Law and Mabel Cheung (An Autumn’s Tale). Spanning the New Territories’ rural Lamma Island (where Chow himself grew up) and a surprisingly becalmed Hong Kong (possibly the most idyllic it’s ever looked), the film hits all the urban/rural, modern/traditional culture-clash notes while tracking the relationship between a village leader (Chow) and his modernized childhood girlfriend (Carol “Dodo” Cheng) who has just returned from England with Madonna—not marriage—on her mind. Familiar faces Anthony Wong and Carina Lau costar, while Paul Fonoroff makes a “guest appearance” as a surveyor who irks Cheng when he sets his surveying sights on her rural village’s shrine.