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Spring Comes Not Again is a tragic story of romance and
betrayal, set in contemporary Hong Kong.
The film opens with a deeply distraught Betty (Nancy Kwan) spinning
her red MG convertible in circles on the beach, and cuts away to tell
the story of her life in flashback.
Betty meets the handsome and flamboyant but enigmatic Lee(Ko Chun
Hsiang) in a bar, who introduces himself as a reporter. Lee begins to
pursue Betty romantically, calling her day and night.
When Betty's friend Lily(Chaio Chiao) becomes addicted to drugs, Lee
helps her get into a clinic for treatment, and finds her a job in a
Macau casino. Betty is very grateful.
Betty breaks off her relationship with her current boyfriend, the kind
but quiet millionaire Cheung(Ching Han), and becomes engaged to Lee.
One night, after sharing a romantic encounter at the beach, Betty and
Lee are attacked by two thugs. In Lee's struggle to protect Betty, he
accidently kills one of the thugs. Later that night, a menancing
ganster shows up, demanding a huge blackmail payment, threatening to
go to the police and have Lee arrested for murder. Betty gives up her
life savings to silence the gangster and buy Lee's safety.
Soon, however, Betty begins to discover some dark secrets about Lee,
that there is some kind of connection between Lee and the gangsters,
and that her friend Lily was forced into prostitution by the casino
where Lee got her a job. Betty must make the difficult decision as to
whether the man she loves and trusts is actually a con man who has
betrayed her.
Nancy Kwan brings a wide variety of emotions to her character in
Spring Comes Not Again, and the camera photographs
her in many beautiful shots.
The film is notable because is Nancy Kwan's only Chinese language
feature; all the dialog is in Mandarin. Unfortunately for English
speaking viewers, the DVD version of this film is subtitled in Chinese
only.
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