On the surface, Love Will Tear Us Apart is a chamber piece about four Chinese mainlanders now living in Hong Kong. But the film resists simple depictions of its characters and their circumstances. It is a convention-defying, highly stylised and singular portrayal of the collision of Hong Kong and Chinese cultures, and it sits somewhere between Fruit Chan's meditations on post-1997 Hong Kong and Tsai Ming-liang's essays on urban anomie.

Yan Ying is a prostitute in her 20s, recently arrived from the mainland. Ah Jian (Tony Leung Kar Fai, who also produces along with Stanley Kwan) runs a small porn video shop. He lives with Yan, a former dance instructor, who now in her 30s is an elevator operator at a restaurant. And Chun is an elevator repairman. The disjointed interactions of these characters are the ostensible focus of the film, but even they are often secondary to the complex cultural landscape created by Yu Likwai's bold directing. Love Will Tear Us Apart was nominated for the Golden Palm Cannes, 1999.