Cop 223’s Story
Cop 223 gets a really lousy April Fool’s Day present, and one that is not a prank: his girlfriend May chooses that day to break up with him. His birthday is exactly one month away, and he has set that date as the day they will either be reunited or he will move on. Every day he buys a can of sliced pineapples with an expiration date of May 1 with the intention of eating all the contents by the time his birthday arrives. Thus he endows with the tins with symbolism: May (his ex-girlfriend) is the fruit, and the expiration date is the day when his hope of ever getting her back passes by forever.
May 1 comes and there is no reconciliation with May. Cop 223 spots a woman in a blonde wig at the Bottoms Up Club and approaches her with romance in mind. Up in the hotel room, however, she falls asleep and he winds up essentially alone watching old movies on TV and eating take-out. Before he leaves her still sleeping on the bed in the morning, he gives her shoes a rough shine. When she wakes up, she shoots a drug lord that betrayed her. While Cop 223 is jogging he receives a happy birthday message on his beeper from the mysterious wigged woman. He goes to the food store where he’s been purchasing the tins and runs into a new employee named Faye.
Cop 663’s Story
Faye, the new girl at the food store, is smitten with another cop: Cop 663, who is also undergoing a breakup. His girlfriend, a flight attendant, is waiting for him at the snack bar, where he usually comes during the work day, only to find out that today is his day off. She’s got a letter for him and decides to leave it with the owner, who promises to make sure the cop gets it. Instead, everyone currently in the snack bar gets the chance to find out the contents of the letter, which, it turns out, is a breakup letter, accompanied by a set of spare keys to the cop’s apartment.
Faye, in love with Cop 663, takes advantage of this unique opportunity to do something even more unique. After breaking into his apartment courtesy of the keys, she doesn’t steal anything, but improves his living conditions by doing a little judicious redecorating. Ultimately, she confesses to Cop 663 about how she got the keys, but keeps delaying giving him the letter itself. Eventually, Faye and Cop 663 strike up a rapport, and Faye helps him get over his sadness about the break-up. Eventually, he gets around to asking Faye out to an actual real life restaurant called California. Faye doesn’t show up.
Instead, she has decided to stand up the cop rather than show up for their date. She does leave behind, however, a boarding pass she has drawn onto a paper napkin with a date one year later.
The film draws to a close as Faye returns to Hong Kong as a flight attendant. The snack bar was bought by her cop friend, and he is in the process of refashioning it into a full-fledged restaurant. Cop 663 asks if she can attend the grand opening taking place in a few days. She says she probably can’t make it and as she is about to leave, he shows her the boarding pass she left a year ago, now water-stained and distorted. He asks if it would be accepted in such a condition and she says probably not and proceeds to draw him up a new one. When she asks where he wants to go with the boarding, Cop 663 says he wants to go wherever she wants to take him.
