*** SPOILERS AHEAD! ***

Let’s talk about Peter Chan’s “Comrades,” the best film of 1996. Firstly, it looks brilliant, like a cross between Wong Kar-Wai’s aggressive editing style and a sensitive French movie. Leon Lai plays an ignorant mainlander, recently arrived in the hustling, bustling Hong Kong. Maggie Cheung plays a smart, strong, independent Hong Konger, who takes Lai under her wing. But is Lai as simple as he seems, and is Maggie that smart and strong?

As Halifax pointed out to me last month, it is a melodrama, but a great one. In my humble opinion, the movie is compelling because the characters aren’t simple. Had “Comrades” been made in Hollywood, it would have starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, playing their usual nice-equals-bland Nora Ephron-written types. They would have fallen in love slowly, and they wouldn’t have shared a chaste kiss until the closing minutes of the film. In “Comrades,” our two main characters, out of loneliness—or could it be love?—end up in bed together. Quite a few times. But they deal with it, like friends in real life would have to deal with it.

There’s another scene where Maggie Cheung gets propositioned by a gangster. She refuses. Then, several weeks later, the same gangster, who seems to respect her more as a result of her refusal, propositions her again. This time, she accepts (Or so it is implied.) Let’s see Meg Ryan do that.

I liked this movie a lot. It is not just a romance, but a story of immigrants who get lost in the big city. I cannot say whether any of it rings true, but it feels like it would ring true. For our characters, there are big dreams, bouts of crushing loneliness, optimism in the face of hopeless adversity, love and friendship. You know, big city-type stuff. The ingrediants of real life.

Note:

If there is one problem I have with “Comrades: Almost a Love Story,” it is the scene which I dub the “Somebody kill those fucking niggers” scene. Maggie Cheung and the gangster, now her husband, move to New York City. One day, while Maggie goes to pick up the laundry, her husband, who is sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette, is murdered by a bunch of black children. My problem is, there are a number of black bystanders on hand—some of them sitting on the same stretch of sidewalk. They watch as the mugging and murder occur, but they do nothing.

Now, I’m not expecting them to help the gangster fight off these kids. But while New Yorkers are a callous lot, if they witness an assault a few feet from their faces, they will at least do SOMETHING. They will yell “Hey man, be cool! Be cool!” They will go call a cop. You read about similar situations all the time. But “Comrades,” and writer Peter Chan, in turn, seem to be saying, “These black people don’t care about anybody.”

If I was unfamiliar with black people, and I’m not sure how many black people the Hong Kong audience would encounter on a daily basis, I would react to a scene like the one in “Comrades,” with: “Somebody kill those fucking niggers!” The movie makes black people seem like the worst people in the world. We’re not just talking that one scene. Sure, white people are made out to be jerks, too, but there is one redeemable white guy in the film. I don’t know. Was 1993, the year in which that scene took place, the year in which urban black people stood around as murders took place inches from their faces? Or does this movie reflect the dislike yellow people seem to have for black people? You talk to yellow people, especially immigrants, and you will find that many of them dislike black people.