Textual analysis is a way of understanding languages, symbols, and pictures for presentation in texts, designed to gain information about how people understand and communicate life and life experiences. Visual, written, or verbal messages provide clues about how to understand communication. Moreover, it is a way for those researchers who want to understand the ways in which members of various cultures and subcultures make sense of who they are, and how they adapt to the world in which they live. Textual analysis is useful for researchers working in cultural studies, and media studies. This assessment presents a textual analysis of a movie from Hong Kong called ‘Love Is Not All Around’.
The movie is one of the channels through which I can find some clues to explore men’s and women’s psychological and emotional warfare, multiple love relationships, and different gender concepts or practices. In the movie, there are many unique insights and scenes which investigate the feelings, body, love, and sex of men and women. This essay attempts to use different theories and propositions as a way to reflect on the love and sexual relationship presented by the movie, including He Chunxi and Kavibo’s claims about pluralism and the description of the material basis of lust, in order to more fully discuss the ‘multiple relationships’ in the move through a multi-faceted view and how the various characters respond to the intricate love and sex. ‘Pluralism’ is a condition that there are two or more groups of humans coexisting, while ‘the material basis of lust’ is a strong craving for sex. These approaches have reflected the attitude of the youth of this contemporary society, a hugely different view of the old generation and the new generation.
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To define ‘multiple relationships’ broadly, I think that should be a kind of ‘non-sales sexual relationship’, including more than one person at the same time, extramarital affairs, a one-night stand, or casual sex among friends. The multiple relationships that I advocated are love or sex, including all kinds of psychological satisfaction, such as vanity, game world, and curiosity as the main motives. The selected movie ‘Love Is Not All Around’ presents the love or sexual relationship as the latter. However, the distinction does not clarify the intricate relationship of love, sex, marriage, and material foundation.
It is easy to find that in the movie, many of the main characters are in ‘multiple relationships’. This includes Bo (Stephy Tang) who is an expert on dating boys, Wing (Sammy Leung) who has an extramarital affair, Bo’s previous boyfriend Ryan (Alex Fong), and the third person in the relationship Mon (Miki Yeung). Their relationship has occupied a lot of space in the movie. For example, Bo dressed up every day to cope with a group of men, and Wing was trapped in a three-person relationship, but he still enjoyed it. The third person Mon had no pressure on living, buying 12 wallets in a week as leisure time. While Ryan was approaching Bo, he succeeded in stumbling over his current girlfriend and winning the beauty in this relationship. The diversity of the multiple relationships in the movie is tempting, as like an alternative atmosphere of fairy tales. The director used a group of young idols and handsome men to perform, focusing on the ‘fans’ market for boys and girls and related actors, obviously a group of viewers or consumers full of fantasy. Under the beautiful packaging, such as actors, clothing, and a variety of relationships, it is easier for the audience to produce a positive impression of the multi-relationships.
From this point of view, the film is presenting multi-relationships and intends to declare the concept of ‘loving more than one person is innocent’. It is paradoxical that the film is on the one hand about ‘multi-relationships’, but at the same time, it is a spirit of splitting the mainstream discussion of ‘one to one’. This can be seen from the self-regulation of the public and the abuse of multiple relationships so those ‘players’ are at the end of the dull and ambiguous.
Besides, the end of the movie is backed to the audience’s preference which is a happy ending. As the boss of the seafood shop, Wing is also willing to support the mistress, but he is extremely guilty after indulging himself. On the one hand, he deeply feels that his wife, Ching was ‘gentle and considerate, and understanding’. It is also difficult for many years to express his feelings. On the other hand, he is unable to extricate himself from the young and beautiful Mon, which makes him feel uncomfortable and conscious, and repents to Bo every time. Facing Wing’s extramarital affairs, Bo only feels very disgusted and forced him back to Ching as soon as possible. Bo was happy to see his boyfriend flow and forget the numbers of dating. Her acceptance of the multiple relationships is also indirectly caused by a three-person scene in which the two chasers and one-night stand. Her blaming of Wing’s extramarital affairs is not in harmony with her personal sexual practice. In the end, both of them can’t escape the stereotyped ending and go back to ‘true love’, which is a one-to-one love relationship.
Due to space limitations, this essay can only make a very rushed and streamlined interpretation of ‘Love Is Not All Around’. Perhaps the biggest legacy of this is no in-depth and comprehensive outline of how the movie challenges the mainstream ‘one-to-one relationship’ strategy, as well as the experience of a group of men and women participating in ‘multiple relationships’ and implementing relevant knowledge and skills in real life. However, the interpretation of ‘Love Is Not All Around’ cannot be done alone, it should be read in parallel with Patrick Kong’s other two works: ‘Marriage with a Fool’, ‘L for Love, L for Lies’. Lastly, the assessment has briefly discussed the ‘multiple relationships’ and different gender concepts by textual analysis.
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