Amphetamine 安非他命

Amphetamine is another movie by director Scud, the same man who gave us the controversial, City without Baseball (2007), beautiful but incomprehensible Permanent Residence (2008) and now Amphetamine (2009). I sensed that Director Scud don’t seem to make happy movies but the scenes are amazingly beautiful and breathtaking. In the title, the Chinese characters (安非他命an fei ta ming) making up the word 'amphetamine' literally mean 'is this not his fate?’ For all you chem users out there, amphetamine is ice in colloquial speak.

It stars Bryon Pang, Mr Hong Kong 2005 runner-up, as Kafka and the yummylicious Thomas Price as Daniel.

Kafka, a straight fitness trainer meets Daniel, a passionate executive who happens to be gay. The young men fatefully fall in love and believe that their love can bridge anything, even their difference in sexuality and Kafka's drug habits.

Daniel does not regret his love for Kafka, who tries to love him back against his nature. But a dreadful memory from Kafka's past makes it difficult for their relationship to work. It turns out that their addiction to love proves more fatal than the drugs they use to explore the boundaries of their friendship.

Amphetamine is the doomed love affair between a Hong Kong finance manager Daniel (played by Thomas Price) and fitness trainer and martial arts aficionado Kafka (Bryon Pang). Kafka, a straight fitness trainer meets Daniel, a passionate executive who happens to be gay. The young men fatefully fall in love and believe that their love can bridge anything, even their difference in sexuality and Kafka's drug habits. Kafka is desperate for love and, having just split from his girl friend, gives in to the overtures lavished upon him by Daniel. The two embark on a passionate love affair which is intimate but not sexual as Kafka cannot get himself to have sex with a man. Daniel, who is at ease with this part of their relationship, grows increasingly frustrated with Kafka’s worsening addiction to the drug amphetamine, whose destructive influence on Kafka interferes more and more with their relationship. Fuelled by the drug, the ghosts of Kafka's past come to haunt him, and he ends up craving for and at the same time rejecting the love offered to him by Daniel, in essence, reacting to love in the same way he reacts to the drug.

There are some scenes with the actors’s privates fully exposed to camera. There's even a gang rape scene of four against one. My problem with the story is the premise, is a love affair like in the movie (a passionate, non-sexual but intimate relationship between a gay man and a straight man) even likely to happen? It’s theme is quite similar to Permanent Residence in this sense. Can a straight guy and an openly gay man fall madly in lust and love with each other? Can amphetamine, a psycho stimulant propel lovemaking to another uncharted realm of ecstasy?

I think I will still like the movie, although it is not perfect, for its technical and artistic brilliance, for the dashing actors and for the raw emotions on display, more than what I saw on Permanent Residence.

I love the scene at 0.49 in the clip, where Daniel spontaneously kissed Kafka on the cheeks

The cast, from left to right: hottie Thomas, Director Scud, Bryon, Winnie, Linda

Bryon Pang as the straight hunky amphethamine-addicted Kafka

Hottie Thomas Price as Daniel (I'm infatuated with him!)

I still heart Sean Li of Permanent Residence

没有戒不了的毒，只有戒不的爱

There's always cure for drug addiction but there is no antidote when you're addicted to love.