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[SECRETS: Karena Lam plays a marketing executive who is clearly in love with her boss in Claustrophobia, but the audience never really knows if they had an affair.]
BY RACHEL CHAN
FOR Hong Kong actress Karena Lam, shooting intimate love scenes for her latest film, Claustrophobia, was one of a kind.
Not once would you find the 31-year-old Vancouver native smooching the male lead played by Ekin Cheng, but their first scene together was so emotionally intense that it took two days to shoot. Lam plays Pearl, a marketing executive who is clearly in love with her married boss Tom (Cheng).
The relationship underscores the 100-minute film, which is screenwriter Ivy Ho's directorial debut.
Told backwards, it explores the romance and politics between colleagues who are thrust into a close relationship.
Off camera, Lam and Cheng had grown very chummy - it was the pair's fourth time working together in seven years.
They have become so friendly that "every time he talks to me, we're always laughing and having a good time", Lam said in a recent phone interview.
"I remember Ivy telling Ekin, 'I'm going to separate you and Karena - don't you talk to her in the next two days.' We were shooting the break-up scene, so our emotions had to be more dramatic and not so laidback."
In that scene, the two are inside Tom's car after he has dropped off their colleagues.
He suggests that Pearl should quit her job. An argument ensues, but it is not clear what has happened between them.
In fact, the audience is never 100 per cent sure whether Tom and Pearl have crossed the line between superior and subordinate, or whether romance actually blossoms between them.
It is to Lam's credit that, while she is no Juliette Binoche, there are a few penetrating moments in the film that define her as a character actress who can pull her weight.
She showcases her acting chops in a scene where she has just visited her family doctor, Dr Chiu (Eric Tsang), who once had an affair with her mum.
As she is about to leave, the doctor returns some X-ray negatives belonging to her mum, triggering a wave of emotions.
"That was the only evidence in his clinic that indicates any connection with my character's mother," she explained.
"I remember that scene: my legs and arms became wobbly - as if the blood in my body had stopped flowing."
Claustrophobia opens today and is reviewed on Entertainment A18.
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