New directing talents Sean Kao (高炳權) and Lin Chun-yang (林君陽) make a respectable stab at romantic comedy with The Soul of Bread (愛的麵包魂). The result successfully revitalizes the overworked genre with Taiwanese idiosyncrasies and easily connects
with audiences.
The film also boasts a winning cast led by rising star Michelle Chen (陳妍希) of You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年，我們一起追的女孩) fame.
Photo courtesy of Wind Maker Entertainment
Chen plays Ping, the daughter of small-town bakery owner Chiu Pa (Liao Chun, 廖峻), who, now retired, spends much of his time playing in a jazz group and attending to town affairs, leaving the business in the hands of apprentice baker Gaobing (McDonalds Chen, 陳漢典).
Everyone in the village thinks Ping and Gaobing are meant to be together. But when Gaobing proposes, Ping hesitates. Before settling down, she wants to visit France, and experience the world beyond her immediate environment. But there’s no place Gaobing would rather be than in the small town with Ping and her family.
Their quiet life is interrupted by the arrival of Bread (Anthony Neely, 倪安東), a half-Taiwanese, half-French celebrity chef and TV personality who travels to the village to track down the bread that his recently deceased mother often talked about.
Bread persuades Chiu Pa into taking him on as an apprentice, and he quickly charms the entire village with his toothsome smile and yummy pastries. Meanwhile, Gaobing is distraught as he watches romance bud between Ping and the French-speaking prince charming.
Eventually, the guys duel, in the form of a baking contest, over the girl. It is up to Ping to decide who the winner is and whether she will stay home with Gaobing or go to Paris with Bread.
Modeled on the made-for-TV film of the same title that Kao directed in 2006, The Soul of Bread adheres to its genre roots and packs plenty of romance and lighthearted humor into its nearly two-hour-long screening time. Fun, playful moments, such as a musical number that involves lobsters and crabs, liven up the story. Needless to say, food plays an important role in the movie as Neely’s character shows how a chef should be passionate and treat ingredients with the utmost respect. He helps improve the villagers’ love lives with his cuisine.
Though the directing duo behind The Soul of Bread fall foul of several moviemaking pitfalls, their biggest achievement is spicing up the rom-com genre with a distinctively Taiwanese flair.
On the one hand, we have the foreign-educated, cosmopolitan Bread. On the other, there’s Gaobing, an archetypical taike (台客), who wears flip-flops and performs at local temple fairs. The tight, focused script neatly revolves around the motif of the traditional versus the contemporary that takes shape in what is painted as a typical small town where residents are loud and full of warmth and the deity Nezha (哪吒) and pineapple bread (菠蘿麵包), a type of sweet bun sold at mom-and-pop bakeries, play a part in winning a girl’s heart.
Appearing alongside well-cast veteran actors, including Liao, Michelle Chen is sweet and lovable, while Taiwanese American actor Neely does an adequate job as Mr Perfect. Noted for his hooligan roles in Monga (艋舺) and Jump! Boys (翻滾吧！男孩), McDonalds Chen is no stranger to strong emotions, but he appears awkward when struggling to convey the more subtle feelings his character Gaobing requires.
With a slick look, solid production values and a fun story line, The Soul of Bread is set to become a blockbuster for the Lunar New Year season. The movie has rosy prospects outside Taiwan too. Its rights have already been sold to Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
After Jurassic Park premiered in 1993, people began to ask if scientists could really bring long-lost species back from extinction, just like in the hit movie. The idea has triggered “de-extinction” debates in several countries, including Taiwan, where the focus has been on the Formosan clouded leopard (designated after 1917 as Neofelis nebulosa brachyura). National Taiwan Museum’s (NTM) Web site describes the Formosan clouded leopard as “a subspecies endemic to Taiwan…it reaches a body length of 0.6m to 1.2m and tail length of 0.7m to 0.9m and weighs between 15kg and 30kg. It is entirely covered with beautiful cloud-like spots
Just after 6am, I walked up to the ticket gate at Taipei Main Station and entered the Taiwan Railway platform without scanning any ticket; instead, I flashed the Sanrio Fun Rail pass on my phone to the gate worker and was admitted. I found my train and prepared to board. My destination? This very same station. I was embarking on a 13-hour journey on one of two round-the-island trains operated by ezTravel. They run each day, one counterclockwise around the island and one clockwise. They differ in a number of ways from an ordinary Taiwan Railway train and can make for
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the
On Thursday, former Taipei mayor and founder of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Seven others related to the case were also handed prison sentences, while two were found not guilty. It has been a bad week for the TPP. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) with suspicion of taking part in Beijing-directed election interference. Xu has strong links to the TPP, which once offered her a party list legislator nomination. Tuesday also
RSS