Dir: Hung Suk-wan
Orig Story: Lui Lun's Clara
Scr: Lui Lun
Prod Co: Nanyang
Cast: Cheung Wood-yau, Lo Ming, Yung Yuk-yi, Fung Ying-seong
1942 | B&W | DCP | Cantonese | Chi & Eng subtitles | 105min

"Love is like taking a tram. When one tram leaves, another one comes along." The snazzy quote that could have come from a Wong Kar-Wai film was in fact written by Lui Lun, a novelist in early Hong Kong. A struggling writer (Cheung Wood-yau) falls in love with a waitress Clara (Lo Ming) and forms a love triangle when a rich man joins the competition. The novella is reminiscent of Camille by Alexandre Dumas fils. Lui Lun's own film adaptation showcases Hong Kong's unique cosmopolitan charm of romance and westernisation. Besides being down-to-earth, the film is open-minded on relationships─a rarity seldom seen in later films. Cheung Wood-yau plays a dashing and romantic literati, drastically different from his later famous on-screen persona as the epitome of earnestness.