Never say you are at a meeting when you're talking to your girlfriend on a cell phone, and remember to delete messages that might arouse your wife's suspicion.

Those are some of the tips you'll get if you watch a new hot film in China called "Cell Phone."

The movie is quite unlike past films - so-called "hesuipian"- that were popular around the Spring Festival and tried to make audiences laugh. "Cell Phone" addresses some serious and quite disturbing themes. One could guess so much from its poster, which depicts a hand grenade.

The movie, produced by veteran "hesuipian" director Feng Xiaogang, shows how modern technology negatively affects people's traditional lives.

He does this by portraying a love triangle among a successful middle-aged TV talk show host, his wife (later divorced) and girlfriend.

The film starts when Yan Shouyi accidentally leaves his cell phone at home. Unfortunately, his lover Wu Yue calls. His wife picks up the phone, and a family crisis follows.

Yan's mobile sings frequently with a gentle voice saying, "You have an incoming call." It is the voice of his lover.

A nervous Yan answers in a low and calm voice, "I'm at a meeting." Unfortunately for him, that line doesn't work.

"It's a habitual excuse used by men," said He Fang, a 27-year-old female accountant. "I'll check whether it is true if my guy ever said that to me."

The film has inspired many women to check their husbands' or boyfriends' cell phones to make sure they're not carrying on an affair.

According to the Beijing Daily, a young couple in Tianjin got into a fight after watching the movie. The wife, pressing her husband to check the short messages, was hospitalized after the annoyed man hit her on the head with the phone.

Middle-aged couples are among those most deeply affected by the social implications brought about by the movie as middle-aged men with a sound financial basis are believed to be most likely to seek extramarital affairs.

"It's all the movie's fault," complained 39-year-old Zhang Jian. After watching the film, his wife started questioning his daily whereabouts and constantly checked his short messages.

"I'm nervous whenever I get a short message," said Zhang, adding that he regretted having brought his wife to the theater.

The picture of a grenade in the film's poster is a fitting symbol for the explosive nature of the dangers of a high-tech world.

"How could it be a cell phone? It's a hand grenade!" one character cries in the film, referring to Yan's cell phone.

"We are often asked to speak the plain truth, to be frank or honest. But sometimes we just don't obey the rules," said scriptwriter Liu Zhenyun.

"It's an interesting question: How many of the words we utter each day are true?" he said.

Despite a lot of press about a rise in marital quarrels after the film's debut, experts say people should not be troubled.

"I don't think a movie will affect a marriage unless there are already major problems," said Li Mingshun, a marriage law expert with the China Law Society.

Perhaps the humorous new year movie master Feng, said it best:

"Don't take the film too seriously. But watch your behavior afterward. If the film dispels what I call toxic factors, without igniting an explosion, that would be ideal."

(People's Daily January 13, 2004)