Okinawa Rendez-vous (Japan Version) DVD Region 2

The plot? A bunch of Hong Kongers descend on Okinawa for vacations, complications ensue, and they go home. Leslie Cheung plays Jimmy Tong, a criminal there to trade a stolen yakuza boss' journal for a plastic-wrapped cube of cash. The boss is Ken Sato, whose object of affection (Faye Wong) has absconded with said cube. Tony Leung Kar-fai plays the self-important HK Police filing clerk on vacation with his girlfriend (Gigi Lai) who gives Faye a lift to a new life.

This is Faye Wong's first film since Chungking Express and Gordon Chan is resolutely unable to pull a performance out of her, which doesn't matter since her mere presence lends the proceedings a certain classy giddiness. Leslie does his restrained thing, playing some brilliant scenes with partner Vincent Kok (who is showing up more and more in movies these days), but the standouts here are Tony Leung - who reminds us all of why he's actually a genius comedian - and Gigi Lai who gives the kind of performance that cameras live to capture.

There's not an ounce of seriousness here - even Leslie's lonely jewel thief is a satiric pose, a riff on Galouise puffing French romantics circa 1963. The only character whose emotions are heavier than feathers is lovelorn gangster, Sato, whose henchmen must bear the brunt of their lonely boss' romantic obsessions. An Okinawan Nashville these characters cross one another's paths, coming up with the most complicated reasons to talk to one another, pretending that they're working (solving crimes or committing them) when actually if they stalled their motor mouths for a minute they'd realize that all they want to do is fall in love a little.

Okinawa Rendez-Vous doesn't end so much as it peters out leaving the audience feeling like a resort town at the end of the season. One by one the stars flicker and fade away leaving Okinawa standing in there wake: empty, but all the brighter for their having been there.

by Grady Hendrix