Words: Ash Pritchard

The last few years have seen the release of a plethora of gay indie movies from Hong Kong directors. It’s as if the city’s gay community is bursting with stories to be told, and young auteurs are putting them onto celluloid (or digital) and garnering critical and commercial success at home and abroad. A success on the international film festival circuit in 2009, End of Love is director and writer Simon Chung’s first full-length feature.

Taking place over three acts, the central character is Ming (Lee Chi Kin), a young Hong Kong man who starts the movie taking his first tentative steps into the gay world. However, these steps are not easy, and a tragically traumatic coming out experience leaves him lost. On one hand, his older lover Yan (Ben Yeung) offers him a glimpse of a settled and comfortable existence. On the other, he is tempted by the party lifestyle and its drug fuelled excesses. As he goes further and further down the road to addiction his actions become more and more unhealthy.

Eventually Ming ends up in a rehab centre where he finds true friendship with mentor Keung (Guthrie Yip), whose own troubled past helps to inspire Ming towards sobriety. This bond with the straight Keung is forged in the environment of an overbearing Christian rehabilitation camp, yet proves long lasting. Released, and determined to begin afresh, Ming starts a new life living with Keung and his girlfriend. But the challenges of remaining clean through the dramas of day-to-day life pose a threat to both Ming and his friends.

End of Love doesn’t hold back in depiction of drug use and sex, and as we see the young and impressionable Ming fall prey to the disposable sexual culture of gay Hong Kong we can’t help but empathise with his situation. The familiar sites used for the various scenes also help to draw us in. Ming works in Private Structure and the city locations throughout the feature are easily recognisable to denizens of Hong Kong. Refreshingly, unlike certain productions, End of Love doesn’t find it necessary to show endless shots of our iconic harbour to establish a sense of place.

Dealing with essentially a tale of friendship and the downside of drug use, the cast handle the material well enough. In only his second turn in front of the camera, lead actor Lee Chi Kin manages to portray the emotional journey of a young gay man going off the rails and trying to find his way back. Guthrie Yip and Ben Yeung also turn in solid performances that support Chungs storytelling. Happily, the plot meanders towards its denoument without lapsing too far into cliché or unreality.

All in all, End of Love is an admirable effort by a semi-amateur team. The lighting and cinematography (the film was shot on HD Digital Camera, and it shows) does leave much room from improvement, and while Chung coaxed good performances from his actors, it’s clear that this was not their day job. It is a credit to the story and the whole team that these shortcomings do not derail the whole feature. In fact, the films honest and often brutal insight into the darker side of Hong Kong life is almost bolstered by the sometimes sloppy filmmaking. End of Love is now available to buy on DVD.