The Map of Sex and Love

New York-based Wei Ming (Chow) returns to Hong Kong to make a documentary about the imminent opening of Disneyland. He rents a place on an outlying island, where his neighbours include the introvert Mimi (Ho), still not recovered from a bad sexual experience in her past, and the extrovert Larry (Ma), a promiscuous gay dancer with whom he gets into a relationship. Chan's film is an essay disguised as a narrative - or maybe vice versa. Each of its three chapters tackles the secret history of one of the protagonists, uncovering everything from homophobia in church schools to a cache of Nazi gold in Macau in the process. The film is discursive and occasionally flip, but more often seductive as it negotiates the spaces between desire and inhibition, between the troubled mind and the always troublesome body, between cruising and map-making. All three lead performances are charming.