Starring: Alex Fong Lik-sun, Stephy Tang Lai-yan
Director: Patrick Kong
Category: IIB (Cantonese)
If there were an award for most improved auteur, this year's prize would go to director-writer Patrick Kong (Yip Lim-sum). In terms of story, structure, and technique, his latest look at Generation Y angst is a quantum leap beyond last year's Love is Not All Around, which is an improvement over 2006's Marriage With a Fool.
Like its predecessors, L for Love, L for Lies is a serio-comic look at relationships among twenty-somethings in the urban jungle of Hong Kong. There is backstabbing and cheating galore, from con man Keung (Alex Fong) who fleeces a succession of women; to stall keeper Fung (Terry Wu Ching-lam) who, unhappy with hypercritical girlfriend Mon (Leila Tong Ning), enters into a 'backup lover' partnership with stall keeper Mandy (Miki Yeung Oi-kan, above with Wu), who lives with the man she plans to marry.
The main plot strand deals with Bobo (Stephy Tang), who has helped make her boyfriend's sweets shop a local institution till former classmate Kiki (Taiwanese model-actress Alice Tzeng Kai-xuan) steals the beau (Stephen Wong Ka-lok) and the business. Bobo hires Keung to wreak revenge, with frequently amusing and occasionally insightful results.