Film Name: 每天爱你8小时 / Your Place Or Mine! / 每天愛您8小時
This is a comedy exploring modern urban romance—a subject so profoundly complex it could fill a lifetime of discussion. Personally, I’ve always preferred action-packed plots over love stories, so I’ll leave such deep topics to the experts and stick to writing my fangirl musings.
When it comes to choosing a lover or lifelong partner, Patrick—a womanizer brimming with testosterone, a serial player obsessed with one-night stands—is definitely not the ideal candidate. Yet, much like Lu Xiaofeng, though not a traditional gentleman and even seen as a jerk by many women, he still manages to draw them in despite their complaints. Both possess a magnetic charm that ensures you’d never be bored in their company. He might not make a good lover, but he’d definitely be a blast as a friend.
Ah Wai is Patrick’s best friend—a seamless partner at work and a brotherly confidant in private. They watch soccer together, jam to music, and know each other’s triumphs and blunders inside out. They share everything, mercilessly teasing each other’s flaws and even discussing bedroom secrets, though Patrick always seems to get the upper hand. From the moment Patrick appeared reciting lines while squatting on the toilet, I was utterly charmed by these two. Though I couldn’t follow his soccer banter with Tony Leung, such effortless, flowing humor clearly takes years to master. This scene between the two Academy Award winners is masterful. Their expressions, lines, tones, and hand gestures—Tony revising his script while Patrick, washing his hands, tearing tissues, and drying them, vividly recounts his conquests from the night before—everything flows seamlessly, their chemistry impeccable. This is what true improvisational acting looks like.
Patrick was a seasoned veteran at charming women. As Ah Wai put it, he could pluck any one of his hundred and eight excuses to wrap his girlfriend around his finger. He lied without batting an eye—skipping a gathering, he told Meimei he needed to be a good boy at home drinking his mom’s soup, only to end up partying in Lan Kwai Fong. When girls wanted to “hang out” at his place, he’d shift his focus to Ah Wei’s home—the only one who knew his secrets.
Later, Mei Mei became another confidante. As Patrick’s colleague and childhood classmate, she’d harbored a crush for years. Not only did she recall their past vividly, but she’d even prepare honey for his sore throat. It was impressive she’d never confessed to Patrick all these years. When he invited her to dinner that day, she must have been shocked—so she ended up pretending to be his wife to settle his romantic debts…
When Patrick mobilized the entire company to find Vivian Hsu as the advertising model, did anyone else find that scene strangely familiar? Just tweak the dialogue slightly: “I’m distributing suspect photos to everyone. Memorize this target. Within 48 hours, no matter how difficult, you must turn Hong Kong upside down to find this fishball girl!” It’s clearly the tone of a police officer conducting an investigation. Probably because Inspector Fong’s police persona is so deeply ingrained in people’s minds, the screenwriter decided to prank him. Otherwise, why would this particular scene be given to Patrick when Xu Ruoxuan only interacts with Tony Leung throughout the entire film?
The chest-grabbing scene had me cracking up. Mei Mei asks him, “Can you make it shake?” Patrick bursts out laughing three times: “Shake? That’s my specialty! How strong do you want it?” I’m truly impressed the screenwriter could come up with such a hilarious bit. It’s clearly a lewd scene, yet it feels completely unvulgar. Patrick is the same—though he’s into that sort of thing, when he talks about it, it becomes vivid, amusing, and full of wit, never crude. I still remember when he mentioned his tie to describe how he’d been “standing” these past few days, and how the whole night was “like this”—that scene cracked me up too. This guy is a born advertiser; even in this situation, he could come up with such a fitting description.
Though Patrick was skilled at charming women, he could only fool them for a time, not forever. Ah Fen eventually left him. Patrick seemed so heartbroken he considered suicide by marijuana (watching this film taught me “grass” refers to weed), yet he didn’t seem truly devastated. He even had the energy to plan his own funeral: at Repulse Bay, inviting every woman he’d ever been with, all dressed in bikinis… Truly incorrigible—even in death, he remained a womanizer.
In front of his official girlfriend, Ah Fen, he couldn’t be himself freely, hiding many things. His friend Mei Mei, however, knew his deepest secrets. Whenever he got into trouble, he could turn to her for help, finding more joy in that relationship. When Ah Fen left him, Patrick wasn’t deeply heartbroken. But when Mei Mei broke up with him, his anguished plea, “I can’t live without you,” rang true. Yet Mei Mei understood clearly: once she became his official girlfriend, she’d no longer be able to share his secrets. She’d become just like Ah Fen, ultimately facing the same fate. So she chose to end things, preferring to remain just friends with Patrick.
Another endearing character in the film is Simon, Ah Wei’s soccer-obsessed dad. He can’t go three sentences without mentioning football, weaving it into every conversation with surprisingly sharp insights. Though his wisdom sometimes felt too profound to tell if he was genuinely enlightened or just bluffing, he was the first among the trio to announce his marriage. Finding love again in his twilight years, he even welcomed a baby son—proof he truly had something special.
Please specify：Anime Phone Cases » Your Place Or Mine! 1998 Film Review: 8 Hours of Love for You Every Day: Patrick’s Crush Edition