Love On a Diet
Love on a Diet (traditional Chinese: 瘦身男女) is a 2001 Hong Kong romantic comedy film produced and directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai, and starring Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng. The movie’s main attraction was that the two leads played characters who are obese. For their roles, both actors had to wear prosthetic suits.
Plot Synopsis
Box-office queen Sammi Cheng is Mini-Mo, a transplanted Hong Kong resident who now makes Japan her home. Years ago she was in love with Kurokawa (Rikiya Kurokawa), a budding pianist. Their forced parting drove her to eat relentlessly and now, ten years later, she’s ballooned to over three hundred pounds. Kurokawa has become a national treasure, and tours the country with Mini showing up at every concert. Too bad he can’t recognize her, which drives Mini into depression. Enter Fatty (Andy Lau), an equally overweight knife salesman who accidentally becomes Mini’s friend and confidant. She hangs on to him because she feels she has nothing left, and Fatty takes to her only after he discovers that she’s really a sweet girl beneath all those pounds.
Unfortunately, Kurokawa reveals his still-strong feelings for Mini on a national radio program. A long time ago, they made a mutual promise that if the two ever lost track of one another, they would meet ten years in the future at a particular place. Mini wants to meet him, but she’s afraid he’ll reject her current form.
Seeing Mini sink further into despair bothers Fatty, so he makes a deal with her. In the six months until she is to meet Kurokawa, he’ll help her lose all that weight so she can appear before Kurokawa as the girl he once knew. It’s tough going at first, but their mutual friendship brings them closer to their goal, and closer to each other.
Cast
- Andy Lau – Fatso
- Sammi Cheng – Mini Mo
- Lam Suet – Bun Man