I worked in video game localization and did some research in localization studies. I’m definitely not an expert but can maybe offer a starting point. The love interest kneads dough for a rundown bakery and is also presented as poor, and as far as I can tell she speaks exclusively Mandarin (everyone seems to understand her though). Mostly all the characters are low status/income, with the main character being presented as a bum/bum-adjacent (he's bilingual Cantonese/Mandarin). It's set in modern day (or at least at the time of release, so circa 2001) Hong Kong, in the rundown/slummy parts.

Now I'm wondering though, why did they choose to have the love interest be Mandarin-speaking? Is it supposed to convey something about the character, that mainly a HK-based audience would pick up on? Is it totally unrelated to the direction of the movie, and maybe the actress just can't speak Cantonese?Įdit: Just to add some context, as some of you probably haven't seen the movie.

If you can't hear the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin and watched the movie with subs, you'd never realise, or at least you wouldn't have to. I never noticed it when I watched the movie as a kid, and it really doesn't impact the story at all.

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