The old chestnut of "money doesn't buy happiness" forms the nucleus of Love Me, Love My Money, a surprisingly earnest and sweet romantic comedy from Wong Jing, who shows amazing restraint here by not throwing one single fart joke into the proceedings. Ultimately, like most films of the genre, there's nothing weighty or deep presented to the audience, but it still gets a lot of mileage from the chemistry of its' stars.

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai plays Richard Ma, one of the richest men in Hong Kong, who is tired of women dating him only because of his big wallet. After a vengeful ex-girlfriend freezes his bank accounts, Richard takes the apparent setback as an opportunity to see if he can find true love in the form of pretty stockbroker Choi (Hsu Chi), who believes him to be a gigolo down on his luck. Posing as Choi's boyfriend in order to fool her father (Wong Yat-Fei), the pair begin to develop real feelings for each other, until Choi finds out Richard's true identity.

The script (which, as per usual for Wong Jing's films, was also penned by Wong himself) has a lot of holes in it. Namely, it's more than a bit incredulous that a stockbroker wouldn't know who Richard was. Also, for a movie whose central message is that money ultimately doesn't matter, Richard's final declaration of love is so ostentatiously over the top -- it involves a blimp and buying time on every TV station in Hong Kong -- that one has to question that if there's even a message to be digested here.

Speaking of that blimp, it features a huge ad plastered on its' surface that I'm sure pocketed Wong some nice change, but just looks gaudy. The product placement runs deeper than that, becoming quite distracting by the end of the film. Okay, we get that every character in the movie uses Motorola phones, but did we really need a cutaway scene with Hsu Chi walking past a Motorola store, complete with a sign with their web address?

But, overall, as far as Hong Kong romantic comedies go, Love Me, Love My Money isn't bad. In fact, it's quite enjoyable in parts. The cast, especially the supporting players like Wong Yat-Fei and Teresa Mak, looked like they had fun making this movie, and that feeling translates on to the audience. Despite its' flaws, it's hard to stay mad at Love Me, Love My Money for too long.

RATING: 6