Love in a Puff (2010)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Better Late Then Never

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Love in a Puff is a Hong Kong film about a boy and girl starring Miriam Yeung Chin Wah as Cherrie and Shawn Yue as Jimmy. Jimmy is the young 20 something, nonchalant, advertise pushing boy while Cherrie is the older 20 something, Sephora make up selling girl full of sass. When Hong Kong starts to throw down the hammer on smoking, the areas in which people can smoke start to dwindle. Smoking areas become dens for these new outcasts as they huddle in cramped alley ways. With fire between their lips the smoking breaks offer an opportunity to swap ghost stories and catch up on the latest gossip. One day Cherrie mets Jimmy for the first time and as he lights her cigarette he the also lights the flame in her heart. Aggressively she gets Jimmy attention by her seductive pushing and pulling. Yes, I'm into you, oh maybe I'm not. Yes, no, Yes, no, and on and on it goes because you know you like it. The idea behind this film is extremely simple but it's the exquisite execution that's worth seeing. The director Ho-Cheung Pang masterfully directs his talented actors to show, not tell; to communicate through lies and body movement. It's not an easy thing to do to show the minute instances of attraction and jealously with just a way you say something.The cinematography is great at capturing intimate moments between the two. However the constant shallow focus gets a little out of hand at times leaving some of the action out of focus. The music is also a very nice touch having a sort of floating sensation above the characters just like the smoke they exhale.Love in a Puff is a well done romantic comedy, in the showing I was watching the audience was fully enchanted by the two love birds and laughed unreservedly at the jokes. It's definitely the perfect date movie for those wishing to inhale some laughs. Who this film is not for: -People who don't like subtitles -People who take love too seriously

The girl has mauve hair, an indication of the hipness of this couple who first meet on a smoke break in a Hong Kong alleyway. He's in advertising; she sells cosmetics. And his shirt is the same color, signaling an affinity this movie seeks to explore. A Hong Kong ordinance prohibited smoking in all indoor areas. Employees began gathering in gathering cliques they called "hot pot packs" to smoke outdoors, talk, and have fun. That's the starting point. There's much camaraderie and banter -- liberally laced with profanity -- among the "hot pot pack" that includes a man with round glasses, a girl with a knit cap, a Pakistani pizza man, a little uniformed hotel bellman -- and the couple- to-be, Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah). The movie begins with a dramatization of a shaggy dog story about a man locked in car trunk in a parking lot who turns out to be a ghost. There's a lot of joking round, and things stay very light, becoming just a little romantic when Jimmy joins Cherie at a costume birthday party at a Karaoke bar -- except Cherie turns out to have a boyfriend, KK (Jo Kuk).Eventually he finds out about Jimmy (and we see how much fun he and Cherie are having together) and he gets jealous. Love in a Puff shows how romantic text messaging can be -- and how it can give away secrets if spied on. And when Cherie decides to switch to Jimmy's network so her SMS fees aren't too high, Jimmy's cohorts at work say she's too aggressive. Jimmy has just had a breakup with a girlfriend at work, and Cherie is older. These are the givens that do nothing but fuel the mutual attraction.This movie excels in its constant interplay of lightness and seriousness, in the way the milieu and the social world is sketched in, and in the great chemistry between Yeung and Yue. Their dialogue is breezy and sometimes touching. Dialogue in group scenes is feisty and provocative by sometimes strict Hong Kong standards; Love in a Puff caused some controversy, which could add to its hip gloss for locals. Some of the whimsy recalls romantic moments in Wong Kar-wai, but it's all more mundane, but enough to show that Wong's tropes are far from unique and sometimes come from Hong Kong pop culture. If only Pang had taken more breaks from the sit-com charm and stepped back a bit, he might have created a bit more magic. There is a bit of that with a silhouette-and-full-moon sequence of Cherie at the 80-minute mark, when the story reaches its make-or-break get-serious point. At film's end, the couple come to some kind of commitment, with Jimmy's Land Rover stalled on an overpass, appropriately enough by making serious plans to both give up smoking, and focus on each other. The apparent triviality of the subject matter, along with the modern urban couple's difficulty with communication (despite multiple platforms) is offset by wit and keen observation of little details every step of the way. This light, cinematic, amusing movie is appealing and fresh -- and has an assured polish, along with casual touches, like the little small-screen 16mm interviews that serve as occasional commentary. All in all, Love in a Puff is a delightful little piece of fluff, as casual as its lovers try to be. One online critic listed it as one of his top movies of 2010 and characterized it as "forgettable in an unforgettable way," and that's about right. Local commentaries say the film won't work dubbed in Mandarin because its Cantonese profanities are untranslatable and had the audiences in stitches throughout. Subtleties apart, the English titles give a fair sense of this pungency. Some little SMS tricks emerge too: for instance, if you type "i n 55!W !" it looks like nonsense or code, but turn the phone upside down and it reads "I MISS U!" Of such details are Puff's flavor and charm made. After its initially rocky debut in Hong Kong due to its profanity and heavy nicotine use, Love in a Puff has breezed along the festival route, appearing in Seattle, Melbourne, Tokyo, Palm Springs, landing in April 2011 at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it was screened for this review. The original Chinese title is Chi ming yu chun giu, which means simply Jimmy and Cherie. I was not previously familiar with the work of this prolific 2000's Hong Kong director.

A light hearted and carefree Rom-Com of the year... Director Pang Ho Cheung rarely disappoints and his latest venture in Love in a Puff is suitably far less self-indulgence and more carefree and fun to watch. Together with the witty and interesting dialogue co-written by last year High Noon's Heiward Mak, Pang paces the film in almost real time fashion. From the sense of a throw-back to Woody Allen's classic Annie Hall by breaking the third wall with characters talking about love, life, fate and smoking to the real time technique similar to the elegantly viewed Before Sunrise. Pang has created a little masterpiece, slightly underrated, easy to go under the radar, but simply a movie for film lovers to embrace. Love in a Puff is the kind of film that isn't overtly directed, but rather the actors are allowed space to express themselves in real-time effect. Meeting people at a random ash-can in the back alleyway of Hong Kong is easily believable. After all, for all you smokers out there, how easy is it to share a light or two with a complete stranger with the possibility of striking up a laugh or two? The answer is yes. Pang plays with these premises and goes to the extreme in depicting smokers and constantly smoking. Smoking is what connected them in the first place and former queen of comedy, Miriam Yeung glows in her role as a matured yet simple girl torn between the end of a current relationship and the hope of beginning a new one. Likewise, Shawn Yue gives a career progressing performance as her younger love interest. Despite their best efforts on screen, the duo just somehow never clicks. While the dialogue and interaction between the two is more than interesting, the only evident problem is the lack of chemistry between the two leads. Surely their age difference was taken into account during the movie, but there is something that just stops the duo from kicking in the romantic sparkles. Good friends – yes, but lovers – a definite no-no. All in all, Love in a Puff might just feel like a lesser Pang Ho Cheung's effort, but in fact it is exactly that carefree and fun feeling which makes this film better than it should be. It is also a return to the trashy, witty, light hearted fun not seen since his earlier works. It might not mean much, but Love in a Puff is easily the most enjoyable and carefree and light hearted Rom-Com of the year...(Neo 2010) I rate it 8/10www.thehkneo.com

Lots of f-bombs and dick or boob jokes tossed around to try and elevate this fairly standard rom-dramedy from the pack. It's not too offensive or juvenile and it's shame to have to get it through subtitles. I'm sure the original Cantonese is more subtle and euphemism based, and crude is always more palatable when it's subtle or funny. Love in a Puff has a CAT III rating and it's not for nudity or all the cigarette smoking.The premise of Love in a Puff is one all cigarette smokers will be familiar with. The "smoke break" is a time to bond with co-workers or friends, to make plans and share stories, and, in this case, tell dirty jokes and gossip. It's also an opportunity to massage in baby steps a possibly romantic relationship. There's a lot less "Is this a date?" pressure than even just meeting for coffee. There's a pre-determined end time and it comes quickly. If things aren't going well the suffering is short-lived and if there is a spark you'll leave wanting more. Always a good thing.Zoom out from the premise and Love in a Puff makes many observations on modern SMS-based relationships, budding and otherwise. Something I learned, and put to use, from this film is if you type "i n 55!W !" (without the quotes) into a text message your recipient might see it as some nonsense code, but if they turn their phone upside down it will read "i miss u !". How cute. And appropriately enough, that little tidbit is the catalyst for a couple of the larger emotional transitions in the film.I like small films like this, the cinematic equivalent, if you will, of a smoke break. Without aiming too high it's easy to hit its mark. It's well acted, and well scripted for the most part, and doesn't veer from its target too often, which is following the seven day courtship of Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and Jimmy (Shawn Yue). Yeung is especially crisp in her performance. There's a wonderful little "no sh*t!" moment near the end of the film when the two of them are in a small battle about who they are and what kind of relationship they're in and Cherie declares "I'm simple and straightforward". She is.My only quibble with the film is an unavoidable one. To go from "My name's Cherie", through moving out of the premises and bond of one relationship, to "I'm simple and straightforward" in seven days requires a brisk pace. Maybe that's the way it is these days. There is a time or two where it seems like a little exposition might have ended up on the cutting room floor but maybe things are clearer in the original language and subtitles short of an essay couldn't translate it. Most of the screen time is devoted to the main protagonists, garnished with a handful of side characters and set pieces that don't detract from the lit up screen chemistry required of all good Rom-Coms and provided by Yeung and Yue. All in all a fun time was had with Love in a Puff.★★★★