Red River
Nick Cheung Ka-fai, Zhang Jingchu, Loletta Lee Lai-chen, Danny Lee Sau-yin
Director: Zhang Jiarui
Both offbeat and off the beaten track, this Sino-Vietnamese drama is an unromantic romance that displays the brutal and tender sides of that elusive thing called love.
Underlining the maverick sensibilities of director Zhang Jiarui (When Ruoma Was 17) is his choice of casting, with three of the four leads hailing from Hong Kong but essaying distinctly non-Han Chinese roles among the visual splendour of a town on the Yunnan side of the border.
A disparate trio comprising Yao tribesman Xia (Nick Cheung), Vietnamese massage parlour proprietress Shui (Loletta Lee) and Vietnamese gang boss Sha Ba (Danny Lee) is connected by the unassuming Tao (Zhang Jingchu), a mentally handicapped virgin who scrubs floors in Shui's establishment and incites a strange rivalry between the two men.