Enthralled

Shing, Ka-Lok and Adam are three childhood friends who grew up in the shadow of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and have just reunited for the first time in Hong Kong as adults. While sitting in a bar, each dispenses precise exposition, reciting his own personal history as if reading from a casting call sheet. Before leaving the bar, Adam who graduated from Cambridge and works as a managing director at a big bank picks up Julie, a bored socialite whose much older husband is running for local office. Meanwhile, Shing spies rich divorcee Linda and makes a quick connection. Is it for money or is it for love? Who knows or cares – she’s got the bank account and he’s got the virile young body and good grooming habits. He gets Linda’s financial help to open his own hair salon, and soon forms a bond with Linda’s teenage son, whose awkwardness and proto-Justin Bieber hairdo signal certain alternative leanings. Meanwhile, Ka-Lok teaches literature while wandering morosely around Hong Kong. He is searching for his long-lost father, who may be dead or disappeared, and that makes his moroseness nearly intolerable to himself and others. One of his mainland students, Snowy takes a shine to him, though he’s so morose that Rihanna could jump his bones and he probably wouldn’t stop reading that damn Sylvia Plath novel. Ka-Lok’s situation eventually slides into a morose personal hell, while Adam’s affair with Julie also leads to a form of perdition.

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