Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Chinese: 甜蜜蜜; lit. 'very sweet') is a 1996 Hong Kong romantic drama film directed and produced by Peter Chan, and starring Leon Lai and Maggie Cheung. The Chinese title refers to "Tian Mi Mi", a song by Teresa Teng whose songs are featured in the film. It was filmed on location in Hong Kong and New York City. Lai later commented in 1997 that the story of Li Xiao Jun is somewhat a description of his own life.
Comrades: Almost a Love Story won the Best Feature Film and Best Actress awards at the 34th Golden Horse Awards, as well as nine awards including Best Film and Best Director at the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards. In 2005, the film was voted one of the "Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures" by the Hong Kong Film Awards Association.
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Plot
The film, spanning years, centres on two Chinese mainlanders who migrate to Hong Kong to make a living, but end up falling in love. Leon Lai plays a naive Northerner, Li Xiao-Jun, who moves to Hong Kong with the intention of bringing his fiancée Fang Xiaoting to Hong Kong, and Maggie Cheung plays Li Qiao, an opportunist and Cantonese speaker from Guangzhou who takes advantage of mainlanders like herself for financial gains. The loneliness of living in the big city inevitably brings the two into a passionate love affair. Li Qiao is able to succeed and steadily grows wealthier, but her savings are wiped out in the economic crash of 1987. Due to this, she is forced to take up a job as a masseuse, where she meets a wealthy mob boss named Ouyang Pao. However, because of their different ambitions (Li Xiao-Jun wants to bring his fiancée to Hong Kong; Li Qiao wants to get rich) mean that they are unable to be together. Eventually, Li Xiao-Jun marries his fiancée in Hong Kong and Li Qiao winds up in a relationship with Pao. Li Qiao also becomes a successful entrepreneur, achieving her Hong Kong dream. Despite their seemingly separate lives, they are still in love and they have one final tryst in the room they used to share before they are separated again.