You are currently displaying English
夏日狂情 (1992)
Long Hot Summer


Reviewed by: ewaffle
Date: 03/17/2007

I suspect that everyone involved in “Love Must Be Crazy” are much more talented than it seems from this movie which is as boring and artless as any 90 minutes ever put on film. There is nothing to recommend here. Everything is badly done.

The actors look incompetent but probably aren’t as bad as they seem—or at least most of them must be better than is shown here. Given a muddled script, stupefying inept directing and almost no editing they, not surprisingly, looked like they wanted to be somewhere else—anywhere else. The sex scenes were boring and much too long. They could serve as excellent propaganda pieces for those wishing to promote celibacy. The transition from one scene to the next was very strange—each time (or essentially each time, I may have missed a few) the camera simply tilted upward showing an empty sky, the tops of trees or the tops of buildings. It was disorienting at first when the shot is in a bedroom and the camera tilts to show the sun shining through tree branches but like everything else in “Love Must Be Crazy” one simply got used to it.

Nothing happens for the first 40 minutes or so—there are images on the film, of course, including some of the tepid sex scenes, people talking on the phone or sitting in an office—it looked like they shot all the interiors in motel rooms or one office set—but no one did anything that was at all interesting or even annoying. They were just a bunch of dull people being dull.

When something does happen it is ridiculous—an attempt by one photographer to steal the script of an upcoming print ad from the photographer who has the account. There is no explanation why an ad campaign shot with a 35mm camera needs a script—and this one had several drafts—or why it would help a rival to steal it. There are a couple of attempted rapes of Ms. Tong, the client from Hell, who is rescued by the photographer she has just fired and who then falls in love with him. The guy who assaults her threatens the photographer when he intervenes but this loose end doesn’t get tied up by the end of the movie. Other threats are delivered by triad debt collectors and then forgotten.

The subtitles on the DVD I watched were hit and miss, sometimes there and sometimes not. When they weren’t visible they weren’t missed.

“Love Must Be Crazy” isn’t an aggressively bad movie. It isn’t “Sausalito” which failed completely in a misguided attempt to recreate an almost perfect movie nor is it “Lavender” which was a waste of talent of some very attractive and talented actors. It is just made by people with neither the financial resources nor talent required.

Not recommended

Reviewer Score: 1

Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 02/17/2000

Opens with a pleasant shower scene featuring Yau Yuk Yue, then cuts to an incredibly long and dull striptease with another actress. Unfortunately, this is the scene which sets the standard for the remaining (numerous) sex scenes. They are DULL.
Also, like many films of this ilk, the script was clearly written on the run and with no forethought. It wanders all over the place, with no real central characters, though they are probably Li and Lin, bot of whom are unknown and uncredited actors.
And gawd knows what the wonderful Guk Fung is doing here. He has one scene where all he does is stroll along for 30 seconds wearing sunglasses as he chats, and another where he sits in a chair and say one line !
Lastly, the subs cut out after 25 minutes, and take a further 25 minutes to come back, which doesn't help.
Not worthwhile.

Reviewer Score: 2