Cantonese: Bat sei ching mai
Mandarin: Bu si qing mi
English: Undying Love Riddle

In the aftermath of a rave club shootout, HK police officer Sam (COMRADES: A LOVE STORY's Leon Lai Ming) apprehends vicious Taiwanese drug smuggler Night (HOT WAR's Terence Yin Chi-wai). The gangster is brought to trial, with Sam's fiancee, Ann (Asaka Seto), leading the prosecution team. After Night is given a five year sentence, Ann is brutally murdered while she and Sam are on vacation in Paris. Two years later, Sam has left the force and lives in the sleepy fishing village of Tai O with his uncle (Michael Chan Wai-man) and the man's retarded brother (Frankie Ng Chi-hung, effective in a change-of-pace role). One day, Sam encounters Japanese tourist You (Seto again), who is identical to Ann and shares many of her habits. The two quickly become inseparable, with the ex-cop blissfully unaware of his intended's secret: You was the assassin whom Night enlisted to kill Ann. She was also supposed to eliminate Sam that day but could not bring herself to do it. Now, she is hopelessly obsessed with the man whose life she had all but destroyed. When Night is released from prison, Sam heads for HK intending to murder him but when the shooting subsides, only the criminal's brother (GEN-Y COPS' Richard Sun Kwok-ho) lies dead. Sam then returns to Tai O, unaware that Night and his cronies are close behind.

A HK/Japan co-production, BULLETS OF LOVE is a fitfully engrossing romantic thriller built around a premise no doubt inspired by elements from the South Korean smash SHIRI (which also tells of a conflicted female assassin but is a far more elaborate and action-oriented project). Lai is not an especially dynamic actor but his laconic style is reasonably effective, given the nature of his character, and the highly photogenic Seto (a popular soap opera star in her native country) is persuasive in her dual role. Prolific director/cinematographer Andrew Lau Wai-keung (THE STORMRIDERS, THE DUEL) specializes in slick, superficial productions that make few demands of an audience. He adopts a slightly less aggressive visual style here but the film is most successful when presenting an unadorned look at Tai O and its people, who are concerned primarily with maintaining their traditional lifestyle. Some gunplay and gory violence have been included to satisfy action quotas, but may alienate the viewers most likely to respond positively to this sort of quixotic formula fare.