The Courier, directed by Dominic Cooke. Written byTom o’Connor. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Merab Ninidze. UK/USA, 112 minutes, IIA. Opened May 27. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In Dominic Cooke’s The Courier, unassuming London businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) is recruited by the CIA and MI6 to be the contact for Soviet official Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), after Penkovsky breaks ranks to pass military intelligence to the West. Their covert meetings, allegedly, helped de-escalate the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Getting as far away from reality as possible, Indian-born, Hong Kong-based director Sri Kishore has answered the prayers of anyone who’s ever hoped to see a Bollywood-style song-and-dance number erupt in the middle of Central with My Indian Boyfriend, whose entire plot is essentially in the title. A young Indian man, Krishna, sets out to win the heart of a Chinese woman, Jasmine, despite Bollywood bad guys and cultural disconnects.

The two films couldn’t be more dissimilar if they tried. The Courier is rooted in the past, with old-school espionage shenanigans unfolding against one of the tensest moments in global geopolitical history. Those tensions are on the rise again, making the film oddly current but not necessarily thrilling. The Courier is stoic and handsome, and spits out the comforting tropes of the spy drama while never quite reaching gripping territory. That’s no fault of Cumberbatch or Ninidze, who are both compelling as moral men working within morally questionable systems and nonetheless make a genuine connection that’s all the more bittersweet for their circumstances. But there’s a pacing imbalance to the film that keeps it from hitting the espionage heights of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy or even The Night Manager, which yes, was about guns but was built like a spy yarn.

My Indian Boyfriend, written and directed by Sri Kishore. Starring Karan Cholia and Shirley Chan. HK, 121 minutes, IIB. Opened May 27. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Conversely, Kishore hurtles Hong Kong cinema into the (possible) future by grafting two seemingly disparate forms together to make something new. In Boyfriend, the Bollywood all-singing all-dancing romcom marries the Hong Kong romcom — two very different beasts — to mixed results. Regardless of whether or not viewers allow themselves to be won over by the traditional elevated emotions and actions of Bollywood (Justin Cheung plays the film’s bad guy, the other man, at a fever pitch), credit must go to Kishore and his game cast for stepping outside Hong Kong’s cinematic box.

It would be easy to dismiss Boyfriend as an experiment but it’s a welcome one in an industry that is constantly in need of fresh blood. On top of that, at a time when media everywhere is clamoring for better reflections of the world it exists in, a mixed-race Chinese-Indian romantic couple is long overdue on Hong Kong screens. The aforementioned Central dance-off, set to “Indian Curry,” resonates well with the Hong Kong vibe.

Kishore and his charming leads seem interested only in mounting a bright, escapist movie mash-up. The first half of the film belongs to the disaffected Krishna, played by handsome first-timer Karan Cholia, who certainly fits the Hrithik Roshan/Shah Rukh Khan mold, and the second to Shirley Chan’s Jasmine, who emerges as a complex character, juggling family demands of her own. Boyfriend’s not perfect, but it is a welcome blast of fresh air that demonstrates how much richer Hong Kong cinema could be.