If you read Tsao's column or listen to his radio program regularly you can find his shadow everywhere. Written by a prolific columnist, the witty dialogues literally flood the sound tracks and keep pounding without leaving room for the audience to digest.

Perhaps the whole story can be expressed better in a novel and thus putting it on the big screen requires another set of skills. As it stands now though, there are so many details in each sub-story that it is quite tedious to let the emotions sink in. I wish their stories had more overlapping elements which could certainly enhance the dramatic value. The only point these three men have in common is their primary school experience. As the story develops, the three men encounter betrayal, deceit besides honesty. All three men have their obsession in sex and/or love and maybe further goals. The last one is a handsome hair stylist who is willing to do anything to hang around with any rich and lonely wife, or her family.

The second one is a university lecturer who is obsessed in searching for his father who abandoned the family.

One of the protagonists is a returned emigrant who is now an investment bank executive madly in love with the beautiful wife of an ambitious politician. They make an appointment to meet again in a year and more things happen within that year, making the appointment uncertain to take place. The movie centers around three elementary school friends who split after 1989 and reunite after 20 years, only to find each other has developed very different lives. While I am impressed with his squeezing in so much Hong Kong politics, history and social issues packaged in sex and lust scenes, I feel kind of overwhelmed and disappointed because of his over-ambition. As a big fan of Chip Tsao's column and radio program, I rushed to see his director debut Enthralled which he also wrote the script.

In the lonely hour mai mai