Three and a half years after the superlative Comrades, Almost a Love Story, Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Leon Lai Ming have finally been reteamed. The result is above average for Cantonese cinema but nowhere in the same league as their previous effort. Sausalito is a departure from the usually youth-obsessed Hong Kong movie scene in that its romance centers on two members of the thirtysomething set. In terms of content, it couldn’t be further from director/cinematographer Andrew Lau Wai-keung’s special effects-laden comic book style blockbusters Stormriders and A Man Called Hero.

The San Francisco-based romance cannot be faulted for its sunny California look, thanks in large part to Lau’s cinematography (assisted by Tang Hon-bong). The art direction, credited to Patrick Ludden, is of a high standard, and the choice of locations excellent. The suburban Sausalito mansion bought by budding internet tycoon Mike (Leon Lai) is nothing short of spectacular and will elicit gasps and sighs from Hong Kong urban dwellers. Where the movie fails in its depiction of a mature love story and that, after all, is what Sausalito (whose Chinese title means “Love at First Sight”) is all about.

The heart of the problem is that a convincing case is never made for Mike’s head-over-heels adoration for Ellen (Maggie Cheung). He is a handsome, carefree, womanizing 33-year-old on the verge of selling his internet business to Bill Gates. She is a 35-year-old divorcee with a ten-year-old son (Scott Leong) who supports herself by driving a taxicab. He can have any woman he wants—after all, he is super idol Leon Lai, and throughout the movie neither he nor the audience is allowed to forget it. I’m not saying Mike wouldn’t want Ellen, but Sausalito never shows just what makes her so special that he would forsake all others. At one point even she asks him, “Why do you choose me?” It is a question never satisfactorily answered.

What makes Ellen truly unique is her life’s plethora of implausible elements. The filmmakers, from the director to executive producer Wong Jing and scriptwriter Chan Sup-sam, want to have it all ways. Ellen is a working mother, yet lives in a beautiful house that wouldn’t be out of place in Better Homes & Gardens. She is a loving, hands-on mom, yet spends multiple nights in Mike’s bed and away from her son. She has a job that is tiring and time-consuming, yet has the energy to paint murals. In other words, Ellen is the kind of superwoman that can only exist on the silver screen. Maggie Cheung gives an excellent performance, but even she cannot overcome Sausalito’s incongruities.

Take the fight scene, in which Ellen calls on her fellow cabbies to save Mike from what she believes to be triad gangsters. Her little boy joins the fracas and shows his kung-fu prowess, which is fair enough in a typical Hong Kong action movie. But in a love story which is trying to establish Ellen’s credentials as a good mother, it seems totally out of character that she would allow her “baby” to place himself in mortal danger. As it turns out, the “gangsters” are Mike’s best friend Bob (Eric Kot Man-fai) and other colleagues. But Ellen doesn’t learn that till after the fight is over.

Bob and Ellen’s best friend, Tina (Suki Kwan Sau-mei) are never allowed to do more than serve an obvious expository or comic relief purpose. Valerie Chow Ka-ling, long absent from Hong Kong screens, makes an enjoyable cameo as a corporate bitch who uses Mike and tosses him to the wolves. The gay sexual identities of certain characters, including Mike’s landlord/surrogate uncle Robert (Richard Ng Yue-hon), are handled in a stereotyped but relatively non-homophobic manner. The film is set in San Francisco, after all, and Robert’s Castro Street restaurant is another example of the movie’s good choice of locations.

One of Wong Jing’s greatest virtues is the timeliness of his productions. This one was shot just over a month ago, and the dialogue is peppered with references to the latest internet stock deals and includes an Easter party scene tailor-made for its holiday release. There is also a streak of blatant “commerciality” that is also amusing, with Ellen’s taxi prominently sporting the logo for one of Sausalito’s sponsors, Star East. But despite Sausalito’s star power, it lacks the sort of sparkle that makes audiences leave the theatre starry-eyed.

This review is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul Fonoroff. All rights reserved. No part of the review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.