One of the biggest challenges of adapting well-love novels for the screen or stage is that audiences already have preconceptions of the characters.

It was for this reason that the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre's attempt at Eileen Change's novel Love in a Fallen City three years ago never quite caught fire.

As good an actor as Tse Kwan-ho is, he couldn't hold a candle to Chow Yun-fat's portrayal in Ann Hui On-wah's film of the same name.

The inadequacy wasn't so much Tse's as it was a script that failed to sweep the audience along in Chang's magical tale.

Love in a Fallen City has all the ingredients for a love epic: a once-rich family fallen on hard times, the black sheep who falls for a rich cad, all set against a background of decadence and war.

Fast forward three years, and HK Rep has upped the ante with screen actor Tong Leung Ka-fai and a supposedly jazzed-up script.

Leung's sex appeal and charisma is in no doubt, judging by the audible sighs that broke out the minute he stepped on to the stage as playboy Fan Liuyuan.

Despite a self-conscious start, he pulls off the urbane suaveness, rakish charm and infuriating insecurity of Fan. This is what the play's success hinges on - if you're not convinced of Fan's charm, how can you believe Bai Liusu's [played brilliantly by Louisa So Yuk-wa] obsession with him?

HK Rep artistic director Fredric Mao has said this new run was intended more as an exploration of the meaning of true love than just the simple love story its predecessor was. It's a question that hangs in the air much like the ending, which leaves an unsolved mystery.

Love in a Fallen City delivers what it sets out to do: entertain the mainstream audience. The sets are appealing, the songs easy on the ears, and the costumes pretty. It's all entertaining enough - but, for a love story, it left me, sadly, unmoved.

Wei Cheng