Hold You Tight

Kwan's '1997 movie' avoids politics and melodrama, focusing instead on characters who oscillate between Hong Kong and Taiwan, between marriage and divorce, between commitment and adultery. Chingmy Yau plays two Hong Kong career women (or is that one woman at two phases of her life?), one of them stuck in a not very fulfilling marriage with a computer obsessed husband, the other a divorcee who has emigrated to Taipei and opened a boutique. The story turns on the sudden death of the first woman in an air crash; her husband (Chan), more numbed than grief stricken, is helped through the aftermath by a gay friend (Tsang), only to be devastated afresh by discovering that he's long been an object of desire for a teenager confused about his sexuality (Ke). Sexually frank and emotionally intense, the film's stature is enhanced by strong performances and Kwan Poon-Leung's virtuoso cinematography.