Love can be a cat-and-mouse game, especially when the two involved are jewelry thieves like the couple in Yesterday Once More.The best part of a good relationship is the playful cat-and-mouse game that comes out of one person trying to one-up the other in expressions of love. You see the flowers they’ve given you and raise them a dinner and nice bauble. I’m reminded of a Precious Moments figurine that I saw once that showed a little boy with his arms outstretched. On the base was written “I love you this much!”
It’s how we fill up that imaginary space between the hands, whether it be with gifts or actual events, that sometimes expresses what every word in the human language cannot.
In Johnnie To’s Yesterday Once More, we meet Mr. and Mrs. T, (House of Flying Daggers' Andy Lau and Infernal Affairs’ Sammi Cheng) who are wealthy, married jewel thieves who have just completed another successful heist. On a yacht they playfully quarrel as the diamonds are split between them. But Mrs. T’s reaction to ‘an even split’ changes the game to Mr. T and he bluntly suggests a divorce, climbs to another yacht and drives away, the loot forgotten.
Jump ahead two years, and we find an ex- Mrs. T being wooed by a powerful playboy (Carl Ng) who even dances atop a table in an effort to give her happiness. He offers her his hand in marriage, but she prefers one of his mother’s expensive family heirlooms and plans to steal it, love not being the true object of this expected union. But Mr. T has read of his ex’s engagement and steals the heirloom out from under her. This was not an act of jealousy, however. The theft was for purposes that appear to be far greater than Mrs. T imagines they are.
What unfolds is a delicious romantic crime caper that crosses the taught passion of The Thomas Crown Affair with the bubbly, socialite fun of an episode of Hart to Hart.
Jaunty saxophone and tinkling pianos keys fill the soundtrack with a fun vibe that matches the relationship at hand. When the T’s (that letter is the only allusion the film gives us to their real name, by the way) meet up again, we see a spark that can’t be denied. Lau and Cheng show us a couple that have no reason to be apart especially since their shared kleptomania is one more common interest than most married couples can claim.
Lau is all smiles and smart charm, playing a delicate game with Cheng that’s as attractive as a lover hiding a surprise behind his back. Cheng herself is beautiful, smart and obnoxious, which is just right for a woman whose child-like pouts reveal a smile that sparkles like the jewels she swoons over. She knows her relationship is more precious than the necklace but has so many doubts about being in love that the heirloom seems like an easier deal than a husband.
As they say, diamonds are forever.
The things we do for love and how we fill that immeasurable void between our arms are what give Yesterday a resonance that exceeds the yachts, diamonds, flowing wines and fast cars that cover the screen. Sometimes objects are the only way people know how to say “I love you,” and this film is one big gift with a quiet declaration of love hidden inside the box.
Take a loved one to see it if you get a chance, as I fear a U.S. remake is on the horizon — seeing that instead would feel like buying a lover a second-hand necklace to apologize for forgetting a grand anniversary.
Directed by
Johnnie To Kei-Fung
2004/Hong Kong/99 min.
English subtitles
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