The Romancing Star


The Romancing Star is a 1987 Hong Kong romantic comedy film directed by Wong Jing and starring Chow Yun-fat, Eric Tsang, Natalis Chan, Stanley Fung and Maggie Cheung. The film was followed by two sequels The Romancing Star II, released in the following year and The Romancing Star III, released the year after.

Plot

Fred , a vulgar and a car repairer, works at a garage together with his two close buddies Tony and Silver. The boss of the garage, Ken puts his friendship with the three in priority, ultimately, despite his calculating, harsh, picky and dingy personality. Both Tony and Silver couldn't put up with the snobbish mother of Fred's girlfriend, Ah Man thus stirring up troubles on the occasion of her birthday banquet forcing Fred breakup with Ah Man. In order to recover the heartbreak of Fred, Ken decided to cheer him up by joining a tour to Penang, where they came across two beautiful girls, Maggie and Agnes, strolling leisurely on the beach as if they were very wealthy. Since then they decided on courtship. They played a poker game to decide who’s to who. As fate would've decided,
winner Fred has chose Maggie to be his sole target. By the rules of the game, Ken, Tony and Silver have to compete and see who, in the end, will win the heart of Agnes. Maggie and Fred still keep in contact with each other following their return from the trip. One night, Fred decided to invite Maggie to a ball, where she was instantly attracted by a wealthy bachelor called Chiu Ting-sin. Fred couldn't tolerate with Chiu's inappropriate acts towards Maggie and he deliberately tricks him, causing the two to incur hatred at each other. To take revenge on Fred, Chiu hired Maggie and Agnes for commercial shootings, and sent his car to the garage where Fred works, thus to expose his real identity as a car repairer to Maggie. Deceived by Fred, Maggie bursted away in a fit of anger and sadness. Chiu was preparing to throw an in-house party to welcome Maggie and Agnes as his guests, but then, he was having a hidden agenda. Fred and his friends were accused of storing drugs and were prisoned. After learning about the intention Chiu is attempting, he and the friends underwent a plan to sneak into the house party and rescue Maggie and Agnes. When Maggie finds out that Chiu actually has an ulterior motive for her, she broke up with him and accepted Fred's confession and apology, as a result, Maggie and Fred got married.

Cast

The film grossed HK$21,720,626 at the Hong Kong box office during its theatrical run from 25 June to 8 July 1987 in Hong Kong.