FIRST LOVE: THE LITTER IN THE BREEZE (1998)

Starring: Eric Kot, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Karen Mok, Lee Wei Wei

Gosh, where do I start on this film? First impressions of the film were "what the hell is going on?" Second impressions were "Bloody hell, this is a load of toss". And that's being nice. It's like watching someone's imagination gone wild, only to realise that the result is akin to what film students might make in their final year.

You could be forgiven if you wandered into a surrealistic nightmare because that is exactly what this is. The problem lies in its depiction of abstract characters, hoping that audiences might find apathy with them, but what is annoying is that the characters are two-dimensional without an ounce of realism.

Eric Kot literally plays himself, and the film is split into three stories focusing on the eternal subject of love. The first story is about a girl named Lee Wei Wei falling in love with a doctor named Chan Cheuk Sam (Eric Kot). She goes to his clinic to return a hanky of his, but he's not there. A clerk (Kaneshiro) who works in the clinic falls for this sweet cute girl. And that's it.

The second story features the same girl and boy. Lee Wei Wei is prone to sleepwalking, and she walks everywhere at night, even getting on buses. Kaneshiro sees her and tries to help her snap out of her condition. In the end, he falls in love with her and even proposes marriage. What the poor girl doesn't realise is that he is a mentally unstable man.

The third story is about Eric Kot and Karen Mok. He owns a convenience store and she is a frequent customer who usually buys a bottle of Coke. They have a past together, but it is not revealed. Day in day out, it is the same. With no consequences.

Cinematographer Chris Doyle, famous for his collaboration with Wong Kar Wai, lends his expertise to this film, and his style is evident, especially in the use of handheld cameras. Unfortunately, the confusing script doesn't help Doyle's camerawork, and the film suffers because it is so incoherent. Eric Kot should be applauded for trying to make an arthouse film so very arthouse, but for the usual fickle Hong Kong audience, this is simply too much to take in.

The biggest flaw is using Kot himself as narrator. He should have simply interpersed the three stories one after each other with some voice-over to introduce the story, but the annoying thing is using his irritating self to speak to the audience about the wisdom of his stories. Eric Kot is annoying as he is anyway without him mugging the camera so often.

Kudos for Kot for trying something different, but it is a test of patience for the audience. A matter of too much style over substance.

RATING

5 / 10