A photographer in his previous life, Kwan has a gimlet eye for how fat cats strut ... Kwan makes a point of noting what wealth can wreak — poverty, racism, exploitation, environmental degradation — but he’s too canny a showman to let any of these critiques linger.
The plot feels like a mishmash of Jane Austen, American comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives (2004 to 2012) and British romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994), sprinkled with Cantonese swearing ... Whole paragraphs are clogged with dense references to fashion houses and brand names ... After a while, it becomes rather tedious.
Lies and Weddings is chock-full of scheming characters and breathtakingly lavish scenes ... Kwan remains a cheekily hilarious writer, with footnotes that give each chapter an extra kick ... Pure pleasure.
