C'EST LA VIE, MON CHERI, with Anita Yuen Wing-yee, Lau Ching-wen, Fung Bo-bo, Chuen Pui andCarina Lau Kar-ling. Directed and co-scripted by Yee Tung-shing. Category I.
NOMINATED for six Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan even before its release in Hong Kong, C'est La Vie, Mon Cheri will doubtless be among the top contenders for next year's Hong Kong film awards.
Shot in synchronised sound by actor-director Yee Tung-shing, C'est La Vie may mistakenly be thought of as the remake of a 1960s Mandarin romance classic of the same (Chinese) name. But this romantic tragedy has a new story.
Former Miss Hong Kong Anita Yuen gives a bravura performance as a happy-go-lucky street performer in Temple Street who falls in love with her upstairs neighbour, a frustrated musician (Lau Ching-wen), only to find out her days are numbered because she has cancer.
With C'est La Vie, director and co-scripter Yee has pulled out all the stops and created a vehicle to help Yuen make the career jump from moving prop to respectable actress in less than two years - considerably less than it took fellow Miss Hong Kong Maggie Cheung.
Co-star Lau also gives a well-judged performance as the cynical saxophonist who leaves his live-in pop-singer girlfriend (Carina Lau) to start anew. He starts to play in a bar and moves into an old building. He practises his saxophone at night and the street-opera troupe family downstairs rehearse in the morning.