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Romantic confusion ensues when a collection of Hong Kongers and Japanese gangsters meet in Okinawa in Gordon Chan’s breezy rom-com Okinawa Rendez-vous (戀戰沖繩). Set in the picturesque environment of a seaside resort, the film takes on the trappings of a heist caper but is really about misdirected romanic attraction brokered by some missing money and more than a few acts of wilful deception as master thief and mailroom cop become locked in a game of cat and mouse.
Hong Kong cop Dat (Tony Leung Ka-fai) is on holiday in Okinawa with his girlfriend Sandy (Gigi Lai Chi) whom he plans to break up with and her friend Cookie (Stephanie Che) whom he hates. His trip is brightened when he spots Jimmy (Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing), a master thief he remembers from his police files but is not actually wanted for anything right at this moment. Meanwhile, Jimmy is in Okinawa trying to blackmail a yakuza by threatening to expose his diary. The yakuza, Sato (Masaya Kato), was all set to pay him, but his Hong Kong girlfriend, Jenny (Faye Wong), runs off with the money and beings living a simple life working at a seaside bar while living with the owner (Asuka Higuchi) who is so obsessed with Hong Kong hitman movies that she’s picked up fluent Cantonese through osmosis. Dat takes a liking to Jenny while using her in his plot to catch Jimmy through entrapment by plotting to a rob local bank, while Sandy draws closer to Sato who cared less about getting the money back than he did about Jenny but is learning to let go of both of them.
Apparently on a tight deadline, Chan assembled the cast in Okinawa with only a vague plot outline and no script hoping to improvise the rest. The main thread is the competition between Jimmy and Dat for the affections of Jenny, along with the obvious contrasts between the cop and the thief. Ironically named “Mr. Law”, policeman Dat is not especially sympathetic and seemingly oblivious to the fact that he is actually involved in plotting a robbery that would take him down as well Jimmy if actually went ahead. For reasons best known to himself, he’s brought his girlfriend on holiday with the idea of breaking up with her, which seems like an awkward scenario begin with, but perhaps sped up by his attraction to Jenny whom he mistakenly assumes to be some kind of pure woman at the centre of intrigue rather than a thief herself.
Jenny tells Sato that she just fell out of love with him and was looking for an exit, while Dat also says something similar about his relationship with Sandy, hinting at the transient nature of love and along with it its meaninglessness. Nevertheless, even as playboy Jimmy strings along other local women and pretends he’s only interested in conquest, he seems to develop genuine feelings for Jenny while she strings Dat along and uses both men to protect her money but is secretly trying to help Jimmy. After being dumped by Dat with a plagiarised poem he probably gives to all his girlfriends, Sandy finds love with Sato and plans to stay in Okinawa, while romance may be blossoming between Cookie and Dat and Jimmy’s right-hand man takes up with the recently dumped bar owner who finally gets the Hong Kong “killer” she’d always dreamed of.
Which is all to say that Dat was right when he said that life is unpredictable, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Despite the potentially dangerous nature of this situation, no one ends up getting (physically) hurt, and everyone eventually finds their way to where they’re supposed to be, positioned for maximum happiness. Making the most of its picturesque Okinawa setting, the film, in the end, comes down on the side of love. The stolen money is reduced to a MacGuffin, while the blackmail and entrapment plots fall by the wayside as each begins to discover new and unexpected romantic possibilities in this otherwise transient place. Light, breezy, and filled with gentle humour, there is, however, a genuine sense of poignancy in the final scene as the lovelorn Jimmy discovers his romantic destiny just might work out after all.
Trailer (no subtitles)
