LOVE IN A PUFF, DIR. Pang Ho-cheung (2010)
Back Alley of Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong
Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie (Miriam Yeung) smoke romantically in the back alley of Pacific Place. Scene from Love in A Puff, 2010, directed by Pang Ho-cheung.
Pang Ho-cheung had portrayed the contemporary social phenomenon by applying the style of romantic comedy, Love in A Puff was filmed mainly in the back alleys near the workplaces, picturing how the Hong Kong employees smoke after the implementation of the indoor smoking ban in 2007. Consisting a range of professions, from office employers to food couriers, who will gather at the trash bins and gossip during working hours. This marked the beginning of the love story of two chain smokers, Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie (Miriam Yeung), who fell in love within a week after they met. The film had taken place in two main back alleys, one of them will be discussed in the following (i.e. the back alley of Pacific Place, Admiralty).
The movie first describes the scene of how the workers gathered in the back alleys during office hours, many of the movie scenes were filmed in the back alleys, with one of those being more iconic. The back alley of Pacific Place was located in Admiralty, which had relatively more appearances compared to the rest in the film, an area full of cigarette butts and consisting of an old and long staircase. The environment was unsatisfactory, as the walls and pipes were rusted, while the floors were cracked and green-in-colour. In reality, people may seldom visit this kind of place due to the poor environmental conditions, except for the smokers who seek a break during their work. Ironically, the focus of the movie was the back alleys instead of the skyscrapers, which people may associate with when discussing urban cities. In other words, people may think of the gorgeous glassy commercial buildings and luxury apartments when “Hong Kong” came to their minds. However, the back alleys and side streets were ignored by most of the citizens.
Various scenes were filmed surrounded by smoke and had applied blurred effects to sharpen the focus of them smoking. From my perspective, Pang had applied these methods to emphasize the smoking phenomenon in Hong Kong, as well as to reflect how stressful the employees are in their corresponding working environments. Besides, the movie could manifest a significant comparison among the impression of the alleys among the smokers and the non-smokers. As for the smokers, they may find these sidestreets ordinary and meaningless, who would seldom visit these places due to low security and poor environmental condition. However, from the smokers’ perspective, they may find this place intriguing and memorable, as there were a lot of hidden stories and scenes that may have happened in this area. In other words, although the environmental condition of the place is poor, workers will still gather and smoke, which allows them to get rid of their occupational role temporarily and relax through casual talks, especially working in one of the top 10 stressful major cities[1] had impacted their mental and physical health to a large extent. Therefore, to emphasize the importance of sidestreets among smokers, the film had been edited by applying various filters and effects to beautify the back alleys that may show differences from the back streets we have seen in reality.
— To Hing Lam, UID: 3035923768
- Modern Infrastructure of mobility: Utam stomping in a city undergoing highway and housing development. Picture extracted from Kknews, Back Alley near Pacific Place. https://kknews.cc/zh-hk/travel/59b9n8.html
Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie (Miriam Yeung) smoking at the Back Alley of Pacific Place with a black-and-white filter and a blur effect. Scene from Love in A Puff, 2010, directed by Pang Ho-cheung.
Notes:
1 Augustin, Richard. “A Ranking Of The Most Stressful Cities In The World”. Augustman. November 23, 2021. https://www.augustman.com/sg/amselect/hit-list/a-ranking-of-the-most-stressful-cities-in-the-world/
Your point about how spaces such as back alleys and side streets are often overlooked by most but centered in this film is interesting. I also appreciate how you brought in an additional layer of analysis by discussing smoking as a broader social issue and contextualising it to Hong Kong and the time in which the film was created. Perhaps you can relate your ideas to some of the concepts raised in our readings. You also made some observations of the space in reality and mentioned some of the visual techniques that were deployed to portray it in the film. You can include a few more stills of scenes which you were referring to in your essay, and explore the use of other visual techniques such as framing and camera angles. Is the still of the main characters smoking with a black-and-white filter and a blur effect in the original film, or is it an edited photo?