You have to give the filmmakers credit for trying as hard as they can to simulate weightlessness in one of the film's three major story arcs, where Aaron Kwok and Rene Liu play astronauts in their space craft, floating around through the use of visual and practical effects. It's a shoestring way of movie magic coming alive, but drawn too much attention to itself to detract from its aspect of romantic love with the inevitable clashing of the ego of an estranged couple who find it hard to find common ground for reconciliation. Why Mission Control chose to put these two together in the same spacecraft alone is beyond scientific sense, but they're stuck many miles away from the earth, and enjoy all the privacy afforded to get back together again.
So there goes the other interpretation of the word space, where a relationship should be given room to breathe, and in the other two story arcs, we see how a girl suffering from OCD (Kwai Lun Mei) tries to keep a distance from potential beau played by Eason Chan, a garbage collector who has experienced his fair share of rejection for being in a job that's modest in wages, and notches below in the rungs of a materialistic society. And in the final arc, Angelababy plays a terrible actress Peony who recently won the equivalent of the Razzie, and in her preparation for her new role which requires her to play a waitress, her research through working in a cafe introduced her to a down an out writer (Jing Boran) who found employment in the same cafe, only for the budding relationship to spell doom despite plenty of formulaic cinematic courtship routine making their motions felt, since it's built on a foundation of a lie that Peony concocts to be someone else instead, nerdier looking to be able to hangout without fans and the paparazzi following.
Directors Tony Chan and Wing Shya followed up on their Hot Summer Days with this film, but this installment, while boasting an ensemble cast in itself, lacked an important ingredient and that's heart to unify the stories in stronger fashion, without which any romantic film wannabe will find it a challenge to connect with the viewer since there's no believable mutual ground established. Trying to repeat a formula is one thing, but overly relying on an effect or gimmick, is another. Perhaps my expectations were raised with its predecessor, but the stories here could have gotten a little boost with more work done on its romance best kept simple and sincere.
You can read my review of Love in Space at movieXclusive.com by clicking on the logo below.
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