Madalena, a Cantonese film hitting the big screen with the kind of small characters. It is not a big blockbuster; however, it lends credence to the success of a low-budget film.

Mada, a man who approaches the middle stage of his life, down and out, lonely, and mainly his life is severely cast over a dark chapter of a bad experience in his marriage. He works as a taxi driver in Macau, a place where you can easily be dazzled by the neon lights conspicuously shining overnight everywhere with allurement. Behind such a flourishing and prosperous city, the film reveals some truths about this city to us by having Mada encounters Lena in a world where only they two can acquaint themselves and know each other well.

Lena, a woman who comes to Macau as a foreign worker who has had a more deplorable life history of her own to tell, only it is unmentionable. Lena works every day hard to earn money, hoping it would be very quick to earn enough to go back to her homeland to be with her daughter, she has had a dream of opening a small restaurant there to make a living. In fact, her biggest wish is to leave Macau the soonest, a place where she finds a ghost-like place she has had a bitter experience.

When these two sad, lonely people meet, a true and touching story begins. The course of true love did never run smoothly; albeit, it is enough for us to have witnessed what true love is and how it processes the meaning of our lives. Love is hard but beautiful, it makes Mada have hope again and Lena knows how to face her brutal past.

After watching the film, I have had a feeling that true love can only happen in lonely, underprivileged, down-and-out couples. At first, I was wondering why, suddenly my brain opened up telling me this kind of couple not only knows each other but also understands each other, especially they own a sense of resonance knowing each other’s real feelings, for he or she has had such real feelings too. Most importantly, they don’t detest each other, they don’t detest each other’s bad life history, it is the most precious thing embedded in them. They accept each other, their love is ‘giving’, they know to give to the one who has had the bad life experience as his or hers, and with this exceptional kind of giving, they know to treasure the love they have. It is empathy! Sarcastic enough, all these things are a rarity in better-off couples. I also know why, it is because better-off couples are too lucky and blessed to have a kind of bad life experiences to test their love, they don’t need to feel, understand, and accept each other’s bad life experiences that require true love, deep feeling, and a lot of empathy.