A DATE IN PORTLAND STREET Starring Wang Xiao, Li Fungshu. Directed by Zhang Zeming. Category II. Playing at Broadway, Capitol, Cathay, Chinachem, London Classic, Odeon, Paris-London-New York, State.
FIFTH Generation Chinese director Zhang Zeming has in A Date In Portland Street, a small character-driven drama. It focuses on the experience of a mainland couple who meet up in Hong Kong after a three-year separation.
Zhang Wei, an artist who has been studying in London, chooses the territory for a reunion with his wife, Xiao Min, who has been working for an advertising company in Beijing while waiting for a visa to join her husband.
The couple's responses to being in Hong Kong for the first time reveal the different attitudes each has acquired during three years apart. Zhang Wei (played by A Great Wall's Wang Xiao) has a carefree approach to life as a result of being a student in London. By contrast, Xiao Min (Coffee And Cream's Li Fungshu) demands a higher degree of sophistication and material fulfilment than her husband.
The story leads to the issue of 'what it is to be Chinese'. Has Zhang Wei's absorption of Western values made him any less Chinese and is it possible for someone to successfully cross cultures without becoming an alienated oddity? Zhang Zeming avoids pontification, placing loyalty to his characters above social observation. As with his debut film, Swansong, which looked at the effect of the Cultural Revolution on Guangzhou, Zhang has created living, breathing characters who are much more than pegs to hang an idea on.
The couple reunites for one week to reaffirm their love, but problems occur from the word go. Not having visited Hong Kong, neither knows the city. They are dropped off by a taxi driver at a love hotel in Portland Street, where they rent a room for a week.
As the days pass, their reaction to events shows how their different lifestyles have pushed their marriage past the point of no return.