Review | True Love, for Once in My Life movie review: Cecilia Yip, Tse Kwan-ho play divorced couple
A self-financed autobiographical story, this film about a wife’s devotion to a love-cheat ex-husband is melodramatic and ill-judged
2/5 stars
Picture this: you are a middle-aged Hong Kong woman married to your first love, with whom you share two young-adult children, and you learn that your husband has fallen for another woman during his long business trips in Guangzhou, China. What will you do?
For many, the answer might entail a painful break-up followed by a period of letting go. But not Sabrina Tse Shuk-fun, this film’s executive producer, who has instead turned her unfaithful partner into a perpetual reminder in her life.
Remarkably, Tse took it upon herself to care for her ex-spouse during his battle with cancer in the last few months of his life – even though the two had long divorced by that point and he was married to his mainland Chinese mistress, with whom he had a 12-year-old son.
After his death Tse, a former senior legal clerk for the Hong Kong government, also found the motivation to enrol in a screenwriting course, write and publish an autobiographical novel, and then sell her apartment and put some HK$5 million (US$650,000) into making this film adaptation of the book when she was already in her 60s.