Comrades: Almost A Love Story Movie Reviews Example

“Comrades: Almost a Love Story” by Peter Chan is a Chinese drama shot in 1996 in Hong Kong and New York City. The film won in several nominations in 16th Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Film Awards.
The film tells a beautiful story of love of two migrants in the big city of Hong Kong. Li Qiao, a young beautiful girl from Guangzhou, is ambitious and has several jobs. Li Xiao-Jun, a fellow from North, has no definite goal in life and is lucky to get one job or another. She is mature, he is naïve. Though he has a girlfriend on his Motherhood, they are both lonely in the city where they are strangers and almost foreigners. They are best friends who eventually become lovers.
One day they break up because their intimate relationships do not correspond to their life philosophies and world views. While Li Xiao-Jun wants to bring his girlfriend to Hong Kong one day and marry her, Li Qiao has the only aim – to become rich. They are just unable to stay together: he marries his fiancé, she starts dating the mob Pao and becomes successful in business. But when they meet one day, the passionate feelings arouse.
They decided to tell their partners the truth: Li Xiao-Jun did it, but Li Qiao did not. She left with her boyfriend and left Li Xiao-Jun holding an empty bag. After a while, the two former lovers will both find themselves in New York. Eventually, Pao dies so they are both alone. They walk the same streets, but find each other only after many years.
“Comrades: Almost a Love Story” is a film about ups and downs, possibilities and misfortunes; it is about the true love and destiny. After watching the movie, the first thing that came on my mind was: “There’s no escaping fate”. The characters did a lot of things, both logical and illogical, they thought they controlled their lives, but the destiny has its own rules and it doesn’t care of anything but its own plans.
This couple was meant to be together – the proof of it is demonstrated in the end of the movie when Li Xiao-Jun and Li Qiao get out of the train which has arrived to Hong Kong. The two Chinese mainlanders have come to conquer this city. Everything that will happen to them will join them. She will show him how to survive and gain money in Hong Kong, he will show her how to love and take care. The two provincials with different background and aims for future will become real friends who can’t but love each other.
The film impressed me much. It is more than just a love story – it is the picture of life with all its amenities and injustice. I really liked Li Qiao as a character. She is a very strong person who knows what she wants from life and how to get it. She doesn’t pity herself and is faithful to her family (when rich, she built up a house for her mother). The only thing I can’t understand is why she left the love of her life for Pay when she herself said that her only dream is to wake up every morning with Li Xiao-Jun. To me, it was completely illogical, though I can imagine that she must have respected Pay, and in his difficult situation, she wanted to support him and be faithful. Here, the complicated nature of all the women is revealed.
As for Li Xiao-Jun’s character, I think he lacks of ambitions and maturity, but I appreciate his love of life, sincerity and generosity. It seems to me that it is thanks to him that the relationships of two young people developed from friendship to love: in the movie, it is not evident, but it is my own impression.
“Comrades: Almost a Love Story” is a movie which gives hope that all things that happen, happen for some reason. One should always keep on going forward because you never know what the destiny has prepared for you.