As the title of this film suggest, it is about a romance that does not last. I actually saw the sequel before I saw this one so when I talk about this I am tempted to refer to the sequel than the other way around. Anyway, like the sequel, A Moment of Romance is a dark film about the impossibilities of human relationships, yet it is also about unexplained love. The movies dives into the romance that forms between a Triad gang member and his hostage (the Stockholm Effect I believe it is called).

A street kid is recruited by the Triad to drive the car in a jewelery heist. Unfortunately the police causally pull up behind him, so he distracts them so that the others can escape. While he is fleeing the police, he grabs a woman as hostage and steals her car. Wah, the triad ganger, chooses to protect the girl from the violence of the other gangers and she begins to develop strong feelings towards him.

The woman, Jojo, is an innocent and naive rich girl. She does not understand the streets as she has grown up behind iron gates and in sheltered schools. She has never been involved in drugs or with the people of the streets of Hong Kong, but this hostage situation changes everything. She does not truly understand the people that she is joining with, she does not know their lifestyle or the way they treat others, but her feelings cloud her senses and she is willing to submit herself to humiliation and pain to prove to Wah that she loves her.

Which is interesting because Wah does not kiss her until 80 minutes into the film, and that is because she is going to Canada. She flees to find him constantly but he takes her for granted until he realises that she is leaving never to come back. But he also knows that the life he lives and the life she comes from are incompatible. Her life is one of luxury and pleasure while his is a constant fight for survival against competing gangs who seek to be the master of the others. This is especially seen after the death of the Godfather and that the younger boss, Trumpet, seeks to take control of the gang and to push out all that he does not like, which includes Wah. Wah knows that he won't survive with Trumpet around so it is either him or Trumpet.

The marriage scene is interesting for it is the culmination of Jojo's persistence. She wants Wah and she feels that she loves him. He knows that all he will do is hurt her but she continues to push to the point of marriage. It should be noted that they never have sex in the movie, even after they are married. Instead he leaves her on the steps of the church to go and confront his adversary. It seems that he refuses to consummate the marriage before he has dealt with his adversary. When he takes Jojo as his wife, he wants to take her with out the burden of the Triad on his back.

This movie is also about escape. Wah, as his relationship with Jojo develops, wants to leave the life of the Triad behind and start anew with her. He knows that he has brought her into his world, but he doesn't want to take that world to her. Instead he wants to escape, and escape involves dealing with his enemies. Yet we know that he cannot escape because not only is he told, but we know that the romance is not going to last. The title says a Moment of Romance meaning that the stronger the passion the greater the pain, and this is expressed at the end with her running down the freeway in a wedding dress.

A surprising gem that reaches the highest standard of genre storytelling, pushing its limits into the realm of true art, that which challenges AND moves its viewer. It may be Andy Lau Tak-wah's best role to date. The plot involves gangster Lau's affair with a young rich girl. The melodrama however, quickly reveals itself as the profile of a man desperate to salvage the last scrap of his own moral code. The foolish but romantic character of the upper class teenaged May is best seen as the flesh and blood manifestation of Lau's secret wish for a clean, happy life that he can never have. She represents his own moral potential that could never have flowered in a life devoid of family love and filled instead with poverty, corruption and desperation. Rising just enough above his fellow gangsters to know that he has missed something precious, he recognizes his own lost innocence in the young girl he has taken hostage. His gang brothers demand that he kill her. But, unable to overcome the last vestige of decency left in him. He lets her go instead. This choice, this one act of honor has profound unforseeable consequences for his life and his character. This film delivers hard boiled action, a fragile love story and and a pithy character study for Lau. It explores the personal cost of embracing moral action, the responsibilities of caring and ultimately asks what defines a worthy life. (from Andylausound)

Its fine, the main lead is great as Andy Lau who made hundreds of Hong Kong films like As Tears Go By (1988) as with here is Jacklyn Chien-Lien Wu her first film which was before inspired Fame (1980) and after this one went on to become also a star. She mainly didn't make anything too wonderful but certainly was in Eat Drink Man Woman (1994). I'm not really in love with this film but it is not boring, it is just that the action of the triads has some nasty violence, of course, and then some rather silly romance. All the time there are splendid Hong Kong locations and gradually we get involved in the action and also the over the top romance .