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directed by Peter Chan, Hong Kong 1996 中文分析
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 Li, Xiao-jun 黎小军, in his 20s, arrives at Hong Kong (HK) in search of a better life with thousands of other “mainlanders” who take advantage of China’s open-door policy in the 1980s; dazzled by the metropolitan life; works as a take-out restaurant deliver boy; meets and falls in love with a fellow expatriate named Li Qiao but marries his fiancee after she, Xiao Ting, joins him in HK in 1990; after his marriage falls apart, goes to the U.S. and works as a chef in a Chinese restaurant in NYC where he runs into Li Qiao one day; |
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Li Qiao, 李翘a girl from Canton, mainland China, who arrives in HK on the same train as Xiao-jun; avoids speaking Mandarin to conceal her identity as a Mainlander and passes herself off as a HK local resident by speaking only Cantonese and English; she meets Xiao-jun in a McDonalds fast food restaurant where she works; also sells songs of Teresa Tang, popular Taiwanese singer; buys stocks but loses her money; becomes a masseuse; when her romantic relation with Xiao-jun ends with his marriage, goes with her gangster boy friend to NYC where she works as a tourist guide and runs into her old flame one day after her husband is killed;
Rosie, Xiao-jun’s aunt in HK; insists on being referred to as “Rosie”; lives with the fond memory of her American lover, William Holden, an American movie star who shot a couple of movies in HK; cherishes the memory till the day she dies of poor health; her puppy dog’s name is “Lucky”
 Fang, Xiao-ting, Xiao-jun’s fiancee and wife; a ballet dancer living in Tianjing, northern China; innocent and unsuspecting; a friend to Li Qiao who seems to want to help her but, when Xiao-jun confesses to his affections for Li Qiao, decides to leave him |
Cabbage,
Aunt Rosie’s tenent; originally from Thailand and works as a prostitute; dies of AIDS
Jeremy,
an American social worker teaching English in HK; becomes friends to Xiao-jun and becomes boyfriend to Cabbage; has to move out with her after he contracts AIDS