Starring: Liao Fan, Monica Mok Siu-kei, Lam Suet, Simon Yam Tat-wah
Director: Liu Fendou
Category: III (Putonghua)
After watching nearly 100 minutes of a woman's humiliation and debasement, a viewer may feel nearly as degraded as the protagonist of this nasty descent into celluloid hell. A perverse romance between a brutish criminal and his obsessed lover, Ocean Flame leaves two questions unanswered: why would anyone make such a film, and why would anyone want to sit through it?
Though set in Hong Kong, mainland director-writer Liu Fendou imparts little of the city's feel to the exploits of Putonghua-speaking tough guy Wang Yao (Liao Fan), whose prostitution-blackmail racket affords him plenty of time for other mischief. While trying to shake down a seaside cafe, he is drawn to Putonghua-speaking barmaid Lichuan (Monica Mok Siu-kei). We learn little about her other than her willingness to be dominated by the psychotic Wang. Within hours of their initial meeting the two make passionate love on a beach in a scene embodying the Chinese title, 'half sea water, half flame'.
Wang warns Lichuan that he isn't a nice person, one of the script's few instances of understatement. The two (above) engage in a masochistic relationship that consumes them - and the audience's patience. The material could have been compelling as well as titillating had the main characters been less one-note. From beginning to end of the nonlinear storyline, Wang personifies violence and lust without modulation in intensity or pitch.