Comrades, Almost a Love Story · reception & legacy
1996 · Peter Chan Ho-Sun
How Comrades, Almost a Love Story has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
An instant triumph at home — it swept the 1997 Hong Kong Film Awards with nine wins including Best Picture — but for years it was frustratingly hard to see in the West; it's since climbed into 'greatest Chinese-language romances' conversations as new audiences finally catch up.
What's debated
The perennial fan debate: Maggie Cheung gives an all-timer performance, so does pop-idol Leon Lai actually hold his own opposite her, or is he the film's soft spot?
Its footprint
The film is inseparable from Teresa Teng's song 'Tian Mi Mi' — it takes its Chinese title from it, and for a generation of viewers the song and the movie now summon each other; it's also read endlessly as a pre-handover portrait of Hong Kong and its drifters.
Where it stands
A stone-cold classic in the Chinese-speaking world and a word-of-mouth Letterboxd favourite in the West — the 'if you haven't seen it, fix that tonight' Hong Kong romance.