A Little TLC(w): Love Unto Waste (1986)

A bit of an odd movie – I felt like I had to get quite a ways into it before I really knew what it was about, and even then, it takes some puzzling turns that sort of defy categorization.  I can’t say that it all comes together, but pretty much everyone involved does well with what they’re given (one major spoiler for the inciting incident of the film.)

Billie, a young woman getting into modeling, has recently returned to Hong Kong from Paris.  A chance encounter in a bar leads to her finding a new boyfriend, Tony, and the two of them enjoying wasting time together with Ms. Liu and Ms. Chiu, two older female friends of Billie’s… until Ms. Liu comes home to find Ms. Chiu has been murdered.  Needless to say, the lives of those remaining are turned upside-down as they struggle with their grief, the trauma of the murder, and an eccentric detective who’s taken an obsessive interest in them.

Hard left turn, right?  This is a film I can’t talk about without spoiling that fact, because it really is what the movie ends up being about – the fallout from Ms. Chiu’s death – despite nothing foreshadowing the murder itself.  Seriously, I didn’t know anything about the movie going in, and there’s nothing in the first 20-30 minutes to indicate what’s coming.  Which, I suppose, is its own kind of effective.  After all, it’s a shocking murder, and in real life, that wouldn’t be foreshadowed.  It’s just shocking, and it comes out of nowhere.

Once this shift happens, there are points of interest in the film.  There’s Chow Yun-fat’s Detective Lan being confusing; you can’t tell if he suspects the remaining trio with murder, is obsessed with getting justice for them, or just really wants to take the now-vacant fourth spot in their friend group.  It’s upending, like much of the rest of the story.  Everyone is sort of shaken loose by Ms. Chiu’s death, and that leads to a lot of unexpected actions and responses on the part of the characters.

That said, the film is at its best for me before all that happens.  Before the murder but after Billie gets together with Tony, there’s this nice stretch of movie where the foursome are just hanging out:  cooking, teasing, flirting, playing, and confiding.  It’s not particularly plot-focused, but there’s something really comfortable about these scenes.  The chemistry between the four characters really works, and while that dynamic obviously has to change when one of them is killed, I don’t think that rest of the movie ever works on the level that those scenes do.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai, playing Tony, doesn’t feel super-specific as a character.  We see early on that he’s a fan of getting himself into mild trouble, drinking himself sick (he and Billie have the opposite of a meet-cute) and fooling around with a woman who works for his dad’s rice business.  He fits in well with Billie’s group, and after the murder, he does what he can to be there for both Billie and Ms. Liu, who are both grieving in different ways.

I don’t have a great handle on who this guy is.  Tony comes across as a mostly-decent boyfriend, if a little basic, thrown into a terrible situation and doing the best he can with it, even if the best he can is often unpredictable and/or ill-advised.  But other than a particular drinking game he plays in multiple scenes, there’s nothing he does that makes me go, “That’s so Tony,” because he doesn’t have a ton of definition.

Recommend?

In General – Eh, possibly?  It’s an interesting film, and I really do enjoy those scenes of the four together before it all goes wrong.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Not necessarily.  While I don’t think Tony is served especially well by the story as a character, Leung doesn’t bring a lot to the role beyond what’s required of him.

Warnings

A graphic scene of violent aftermath, sexual content (including Tony’s dad fondly reminiscing about the time he banged Tony’s mom on a bag of rice – c’mon, man,) language, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.