Comrades: Almost A Love Story 1996

The film, spanning years, centers on two Chinese mainlanders who migrate to Hong Kong to make a living, but end up falling in love. Leon Lai plays a naive Northerner, Li Xiao-Jun, and Maggie Cheung plays an opportunist/entrepreneur from Cantonese speaking Guangzhou, Li Qiao, who takes advantage of mainlanders like herself for financial gains. The loneliness of living in the big city inevitably brings the two into a passionate love affair. But their different ambitions (Li Xiao-Jun wants to bring his fiance to Hong Kong; Li Qiao wants to get rich) mean that they are unable to be together. Eventually, Li Xiao-Jun marries his fiance in Hong Kong and Li Qiao winds up in a relationship with a mob boss named Pao. Li Qiao also becomes a successful entrepreneur, achieving her Hong Kong dream. Despite their seemingly separate lives, however, they are still in love and they have one final tryst in the room they used to share before they are separated again. 

Burdened by guilt and his love for Li Qiao, Xiao-Jun confesses to his wife that he has not been faithful. He then leaves Hong Kong, and becomes a cook in the United States. Pao, chased by the Hong Kong police, escapes with Li Qiao to the U.S. as illegal immigrants. After almost 10 years, Xiao-Jun and Li Qiao meet again as lonely immigrants in the U.S. (after the latter gets her green card). By then, both of them have already been freed from their previous partners - Xiao-Jun left his wife, and Pao is killed in a robbery in the U.S. The film ends with Xiao-Jun and Li Qiao fatefully meeting each other in front of an electronic shop that has a display TV playing a Teresa Teng video, after news of the singer's death broke. It was filmed on location in Hong Kong and New York City.