‘Marriage with a liar’ is a romantic film which written and directed by Patrick Kong. It released in the year-end of 2010. Before discussing the movie, I would like to talk about the director Patrick Kong first. In Hong Kong’s movie industry, the name of Patrick Kong can be said to represent ‘romance film’. It is because he had shot three successful romance films in previous years (Marriage With A Fool <獨家試愛>, Love Is Not All Around <十分愛> and L for Love, L for Lies <我的最愛>) and they aroused people’s attention. Thereafter, if we heard any movie which is shot by Patrick Kong, we will think of romance film immediately. Different from other local romance films, in Patrick Kong’s film, the relationships between the characters are always much more complicated. Cheating, lying and faithlessness are always become a main plot in his movies. Some people like Patrick Kong’s movie very much because they think his movie is much more realistic than other fairy-tale-ending romance film.
This movie talks about the clandestine love affairs of a groom-to-be and a bride-to-be before their wedding day. Before entering the cinema, I thought that it is another romance film talks about cheating and lying like the previous movies that Patrick Kong shot before. But this movie had surprised me since it revealed nowadays people’s attitudes towards marriage and this movie involved lots of stereotyping of the young people before marriage, especially men.
In the movie, Kiki (Chrissie Chou starring) had a single party
before her wedding day. All of her friends persuade her to find a man to have fun before marriage. And the same situation happened to 阿澤 (Him Law starring) since his colleagues entice him to night club or else he would regret after marriage. This reflected the culture of ‘easy-come-easy-go relationship’. Also, the movie reflected that nowadays people have fear of marriage. People regarded marriage as the end of one’s single life freedom. In the film, the characters always emphasize some phrases like ‘marriage is the grave of love’.
Also, although the movie talks about the clandestine love affairs of both men and women, it involved lots of stereotypes of men. For example, the phrases that characters always repeat are ‘個個男人結婚前都出去玩’ and ‘十個男人九個滾, 剩低果個仲諗緊’. Also, in the film, all of the male characters are appeared as playboys. These phrases and images are mainly directed against male. In the movie, there are more details about how阿澤 has his clandestine love affair. Moreover, the man that Kiki met before wedding is also a groom to be. In my opinion, these created a sense that in the situation men are worst than women and women are more forgivable than men.
Although this movie seems bring out a realistic situation of 
nowadays people’s attitude toward marriage, the ending of this movie didn’t surprised me. The closure of movie is a wedding party. Like other romance film, this film ends by the characters having wedding party and at the end all the problems are solved. I think the director only stick to the traditional romance film formula to finish the movie. In my opinion, the ending just simply implied that marriage can solve the distrust and suspecting problem between couples and is a way for people to forgive the clandestine love affairs that happened before. It has some contradiction to its message since this movie is emphasizing the easy-come-easy-go relationship nowadays and people’s distrust of marriage.
By Wu Hiu Tung, Jodie (10380807)
A detailed examination of love relations and gender images depicted in the film is conducted, with plenty of valid and illustrative examples cited. A brief study on the director’s previous work also helps derive some cultural connotations (e.g, attitudes towards love, darkness in love/marriage) consistently conveyed (and reinforced) throughout his films.
ReplyDeleteThough the stereotypical character of “playboys” seems to portray a negative image of male, at the same time, it also normalizes the “faithless” act of men. By generalizing this “nature” to “all men”, their disloyal behavior actually becomes more understandable and even “acceptable”!
In fact, the “happy ending” not just conformed to the traditional romance formula, but also urged us to forgive our imperfect partners, and to accept all the imperfections in reality. This is again the style of Patrick Kong, he never believes in fairy tale and perfect love.