"Comrades: Almost a Love Story" is a love film directed by the famous Hong Kong director Peter Chen and released in 1996. Compared with the domestic literary films in recent years, this work taken 20 years ago is quite outstanding in many aspects. It touches the innumerable wandering and the emotionally weak inner heart with a delicate and soft lens, which has caused widespread resonance. The film won the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and many other awards, as well as the 34th Taiwan Golden Horse Award for Best film and Best actress. With the awards, Peter Chen has won the love and reputation of many mainland fans with this film. The film tells that on March 1, 1986, Li Xiaojun bid farewell to his girlfriend Xiaoting, who came to Hong Kong from Wuxi. Here he met Li Qiao from Guangzhou. They found that both of them liked Teresa Teng's songs and became spiritually dependent. Until one day, they found that the other party was not the ideal place to come to Hong Kong, so they broke up. Xiaoting finally became Mrs. Li, and Li Qiao found the triad brother.

The days are not flowing slowly, but the two still can't forget the emotions and find that they still miss each other. When the two met again, nine years later, Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao unexpectedly listened to the news of Teresa Teng’s death in front of a shop window in New York. The two suddenly found each other, and when they met, they felt the classic song "Sweet Honey" that witnessed the two people witnessed together. To this day, this film is also one of the most treasured films of many fans. One of the reasons why the film is good is its simple temperament. The first is that time and space are simple, and the structure and clues can be properly associated with Teresa Teng's songs.

Obviously, it can be seen that the pure linear narrative structure of the director is a kind of self-confidence in image expression. Peter Chen does not want to join an overly complicated form, and the content of the story is everything. The film directed by Peter Chen is based on love and begins with the love story of men and women. The whole film reflects the social dynamics of China in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, many mainlanders came to the richest Hong Kong makes a living. Some people want to be able to take root in Hong Kong in order to make a fortune. This film portrays the love story between the two marginalized figures in this social environment.

Their common experience is the unrest of the drifting and leaving the country in the background. In fact, no matter Hong Kong people, Cantonese people or mainlanders, they are all Chinese. Therefore, this work has been integrated into and throughout the entire narrative process by the famous female singer Teresa Teng’s song "Sweet Honey", which sang in the return of Hong Kong in 1997. The various characters in the bottom of Hong Kong are either happy or jealous. Although the "Sweet Honey" melody seems to always exist in many scenes of the film, the music itself has made subtle changes. The joy and festive atmosphere in the original songs began to turn into melancholy and sadness after the re-arrangement. Even in the classic picture of the movie, Li Xiaojun rode a bicycle carrying Li Qiao and sang "Sweet, you laugh." When it still has no sweet smell, it is replaced by a sentimental atmosphere.

In the movie, a few of the soundtracks of the original songs were used in the soundtrack of a certain scene. When the two met in front of the window, the sound of the original music revealed the different moods of the two. The soundtrack of the entire film has a smooth emotional expression and a coordinated emotional rhythm. A re-arranged insertion of "Sweet Honey" brings a touch of melancholy or joy to the film. Throughout Peter Chen's work, this movie relies on the director's personal lens expression and skillful narrative means, creating a space-time environment full of artistic tension. Whether it is the end of the closed structure, or all kinds of methodical shots and melancholy tones, they all form an organic image as a whole. The emotions of the film flow in the lyrical style and the faint cultural metaphor, reflecting the passing of the years and the vicissitudes of life in that particular era. In addition, this movie also makes people wandering indefinitely. It can be said that this film in art expression or in the emotional core are all perfect. Among the love works of Peter Chen, “Comrade: Almost a Love Story” has a milestone meaning.

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My Score is 7.8/10

Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/37185-tian-mi-mi?language=en-US
Critic: AAA