Romantic comedies are a dime-a-dozen in Hong Kong, with local audiences consistently embracing all manner of cute set-ups and situations. They can present quite a challenge to sit through if one does not like the genre, in part because they are so dominated by overly familiar stereotypes and a distinctly Chinese sense of humour. Leave it to Johnnie To, a hugely inventive and improvisational director of crime flicks and thrillers, to apply his unpredictable and idiosyncratic approach to the themes of love and comic misadventure. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, which was released back in 2011, stands out from the morass of near-identical features. It is charming, genuinely funny, and very unpredictable. International audiences adore To’s grittier films; they should make the time for gentler, funnier ones like this.

The film stars Gao Yuanyuan as Cheng Zixin: a financier from mainland China who successfully predicts the 2008 financial crisis, despite her warnings going unheeded by her current employer. Immediately before the crisis devastates Hong Kong’s financial sector, she meets two very different romantic suitors. Cheung Shen-ran (Louis Koo) is a charismatic financial genius who works in the office building directly across from Zixin’s window. Through the use of magic tricks, post-it note artwork and hand-written cards he attempts to woo her from across the street. At the same time Zixin meets Fang Qihong (Daniel Wu), a talented architect turned shambolic alcoholic.

When Zixin returns to Hong Kong in 2011, she stumbles upon both men all over again – but which one will capture her heart?

The Asian financial crisis clearly dominated To’s thinking for a while, since it partly forms the narrative of more than one of his movies. In the same year he also directed Life Without Principle, a rather more serious satire of Hong Kong’s banking sector, while in Office (2015) he addresses financial malfeasance via the movie musical format. It is testament to his creativity that all three films tackle similar issues in such different genres.

To co-directs the film with regular collaborator Wai Ka-fai, and together they bring the visual flair and slightly off-kilter tone of their non-romantic films to the genre. It makes for a stimulating mix, lifting a relatively by-the-number melodramatic plot and successfully creating something new with it. Wai Ka-fai is a gifted screenwriter, and brings an enormous amount of character and depth to the script. An extended section of the narrative concerns a pet frog, and it is remarkable just how much emotional weight the screenplay lends to a single animal.

Louis Koo is perfectly cast as the charismatic but unfaithful Shen-ran, while Daniel Wu does a very effective job with a character who develops considerably from his first scene to his last. Between them Gao Xuanxuan plays Zixin’s inner conflict exceptionally well – it is testament to her performance and the film’s script and direction that Zixin’s final romantic choice isn’t entirely obvious until the film’s climax.

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart is never going to receive the same degree of critical acclaim or size of audience as his dramatic works, and that is genuinely a shame. This is smart, inventive stuff, and it all leads to a highly entertaining and engaging experience. If you are in the mood for Chinese romance, this is one of the first films I would recommend.