| Title: The Accident Also Known As: Sam yuen yi ma Year: 1999
Directed by: Julian Lee Chi-Chiu
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 83 min
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: Not available
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Stanley Kwan produced this existential drama about one evening with three torrid affairs - all in the aftermath of a bad train accident between China and HK. Director Lee Chi-Chiu adapts his own novel, and the result is a well-staged and interesting drama, but not without its small faults.
Andrew Lin Hoi is a mainland tour guide who’s stranded in China when the accident happens. He was supposed to pick up his visiting girlfriend Gigi Lai, but instead he gets stuck in a hotel where a Category 3 film is being filmed. There he strikes up a quick connection with the leading lady (Almen Wong), who offers him a role in a graphic love scene with her. Meanwhile, Gigi has arrived in HK only to find herself alone with no one to turn to. Depressed and despondent, she takes comfort in the attentions of a lonely older man played by Patrick Tse Yin.
The third and most interesting affair occurs between taxi driver Ben Ng and mainland hustler Wong Hei. The two hook up outside the train station and fight and fume in between steamy couplings that make the fabled love scene in Happy Together look like a handshake. Credit Ben Ng and Wong Hei with their professionalism to pull off the scenes, and provide an emotional context for their characters. Conversely, the main romance between tour guide Andrew Lin and porn star Almen Wong seems contrived and subsequently without much weight. Overall, this is a film worth seeing for its efforts to explore darker sides of relationships, though it's probably not award-winning material.
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