Fridae

After his horror hit The Maid, film critic-turned-filmmaker
Kelvin Tong turns his attention to this ambitious but seriously
flawed art film about a pulp fiction writer Jiang Qin who finds
himself increasingly lost in the world of his own imagination.

Jiang has relationships with different women, just so that he can
milk them for material and inspiration. Among them are the mousy
librarian (Evelyn Tan) and the libidinous policewoman (Ericia Lee).
But Jiang's stories seem to take on a life of their own, and it
becomes hard for him (or us) to make out what is fact and what is
fiction.

Kelvin Tong was named Best Director at the recent Singapore International
Film Festival for Love Story, his third film after Eating
Air and The Maid. But that award notwithstanding,
Love Story feels too contrived and unwieldy to really engage
the viewer. The characters come across as largely artificial and
not worth caring about. If you have a low tolerance for art films
that try to mix Haruki Murakami musings with Wong Kar Wai aesthetics,
you won't like Love Story.