A Moment of Romance， DIR. Benny Chan（1970）
A Moment of Romance (天若有情) is a Hong Kong action romance film. This film was directed by Benny Chan and starred Andy Lau, Jacklyn Wu, and Ng Man-tat. It told a romantic story that an underworld rag and a rich heiress fell in love with each other, just like a Hong Kong version of “Romeo and Juliet”
Wah Dee (Andy Lau), a young triad gangster, hijacked a girl named Jo Jo (Jacklyn Wu) in a jewelry store robbery. After this accident, they then experienced a range of incidents. Eventually, they were in love with each other. However, Jo Jo was forced by his parents to go to Canada. Meanwhile, the leader of Wah’s gang had died and a man in their gang called Trumpet wanted to take charge of their gang and killed Wah’s boss. Although Wah escaped, he was seriously wounded. At the end of the movie, he came to Jo Jo‘s home to take her to a church.
They had their own wedding here, with outfits stolen from a bridal shop. When Jo Jo
prayed for their future, Wah got on his bicycle and left alone. He was out for revenge, but he could never be back again……
The place I will discuss in this report is this church, St. Margaret’s Church, located at 2A Happy Valley Road, Wanchai District, Hong Kong Island. In this space, this film has a climax. Jo Jo and Wah had a romantic wedding.
In this space, they exchanged their rings in front of the door of the church. The film shot at the statue in front of the church. They witnessed their wedding and gave the audience a feeling of sanctity. It strongly contrasts to the two people: they had just stolen outfits from a bridal shop and there was even blood on the groom’s clothes. But this contrast allows the audience to better appreciate the genuineness of their feelings. As she knelt on the steps to pray, this movie gives an overhead shot. It seems that the audience was the god that could control their destiny. The audience could feel her sadness and happiness.
Compared St. Margaret’s Church in the film with that in reality, this film doesn’t focus on the internal structure of this church, instead, it mainly focuses on the stairs outside the church. This is for the subsequent plot. Because of the stairs, Jo Jo couldn’t realize Wah’s leaving in time and thus couldn’t prevent him from revenging. Besides, this film also gives 3 shots on the slope gave a shot of the slope outside the church. There exists a comparation in the film. When they came to the church, they were together. But when Wah again went over this slope, he was alone. In the third shot, the audience could see Jo Jo running down the slope. The huge difference shows the tragedy of love between the two people. He died after he after completing his revenge.
Zhang Binyue 3035945693
I appreciate how you analysed specific scenes in the space and tried to link your observations to the film’s themes and the possible effects on the viewer. The exploration of contrasts is also interesting. More could be said about the space in reality and how it compares to its portrayal in the film. This can be supported by virtual field trip materials such as photos of the actual space taken from similar angles for the scenes you selected. You can also try to incorporate more visual techniques in your analysis, such as the film’s use of lighting, angles and framing. Is the first image taken from online sources? You are also reminded to cite any references used.