HONG KONG, March 9(AP) -- Director Law Wing-cheong's movie "2 Become 1" is a missed opportunity to delve deeply into emotional turmoil brought by breast cancer, and is bogged down by seemingly pointless distractions and a weak male lead in Taiwanese pop star Richie Jen.

Hong Kong actress-singer Miriam Yeung is Bingo, a no-nonsense advertising executive who accidentally discovers she has a lump on her breast during a fling with Doctor V (Jen). The lump turns out to be cancerous and requires a total mastectomy.

She goes through denial and depression before finally coming to terms with her illness.

It's a potentially rich story, but Law doesn't address the emotional vicissitudes of Yeung with enough depth. Bingo almost magically comes to peace with her mastectomy after attending a church service and talking to a breast cancer survivor. But there's no examination of how she reached that state of mind.

The plot is diluted by needless tangents, such as Yeung falling for a Chinese medicine scam concocted by a past love, and two of her girlfriends who fight over a man.

Jen is little more than a handsome Mr. Nice Guy who impresses with his sincerity and love for Bingo.

However, Yeung is solid as the brash, headstrong Bingo, in a refreshing change from her usual happy-go-lucky girl-next-door roles.

Indeed, the movie's highlights come in its parodies of the Hong Kong stereotype of people being coldly practical and cutthroat.

Bingo is so demanding that whenever she sees a flaw in advertising posters at subway stations she calls to have them fixed right away.

When her two girlfriends break out into a fight after discovering they are pursuing the same man _ all while Bingo is coping with the news of cancer _ another friend tries to mediate by saying that juggling two significant others isn't that big of a deal.

During a suicide attempt in her home when she burns newspapers and charcoal to create toxic fumes, she inexplicably stops.

The camera then zooms in on the newspaper article she was reading _ a story about how a home in which a killing occurred lost its market value in superstitious Hong Kong.