Three years after his record-breaking debut feature You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年，我們一起追的女孩), best-selling writer and director Jiubadao (九把刀 or “Nine Knives,” real name Giddens Ko, 柯景騰) returns with Cafe. Waiting. Love (等一個人咖啡), a romantic comedy based on his novel of the same title. This time, however, Jiubadao’s working partner Chiang Chin-lin (江金霖) is in the director’s seat and supported by big-shot producer Angie Chai (柴智屏). The movie rounds out nicely with an appealing cast of novices and veterans, including Hong Kong’s former pop diva Vivian Chow (周慧敏) as a guest performer.
Billed as the second installment of Jiubadao’s love trilogy, the highly anticipated film brings an entertaining mixture of zany slapstick and manga-esque humor, but lacks the youthful spark and ingenuity that made its predecessor shine.
The film begins with Siying (Vivian Sung, 宋芸樺), a loud, outspoken college girl who is almost hit by a bus. Believing Zeyu (Marcus Chang, 張立昂) is the man who saved her from death, Siying follows the mysterious and gentle young man to Cafe. Waiting. Love, a coffee shop managed by tomboy barista Abusi (Megan Lai, 賴雅妍). She applies for a job and is hired by the beautiful, melancholy owner (Vivian Chow, 周慧敏).
Photo courtesy of Amazing Film Studio
Siying spends most of her time harboring a secret crush on Zeyu until she meets the goofy and upbeat A-Tuo (Bruce, 布魯斯), who attends the same college as her. Standing up to defend A-Tuo when he is teased by his buddies for losing his girlfriend to Abusi, Siying impresses A-Tuo, and the two soon become good friends.
A-Tuo, who works various part-time jobs to save money to travel, introduces Siying to a motley group of characters such as film director-turned-gangster mediator Brother Bao (Lee Luo, 李王羅) and sexy Auntie Jindao (Paulien Lan, 藍心湄). Together, the two have great fun, but Siying takes no notice of A-Tuo’s growing affection for her.
It isn’t until Siying confesses her love to Zeyu and discovers his secret that she realizes her heart belongs to A-Tuo, who is on his way to Africa.
Photo courtesy of Amazing Film Studio
Co-produced and written by Jiubadao, the film is packed with juvenile fun and surprise plot twists which, not to give the story away, involve supernatural powers and a couple of ghosts. As in You Are the Apple of My Eye, which discovered new talent Ko Chen-tung (柯震東) and propelled Michelle Chen (陳妍希) into the limelight, Jiubadao and his crew know how to pick their cast.
Newbie actors Vivian Sung and Bruce both appear natural and relaxed in their roles, sharing electrifying chemistry on the screen. Having gradually withdrawn from the public eye in recent years, Vivian Chow simply delights with her rare, elegant presence. Worth a special mention is Lai’s relatively quiet performance as the tomboy lesbian.
At two hours, the film could have used some pruning. While fueling the story with much needed dramatic tension and slapstick humor, the subplots involving Brother Bao and Auntie Jindao as well as Vivian Chow’s character appear not fully integrated into the story, rending the film less focused and structured. Jokes and characters are sometimes more stereotypical than organic, short of sparks to bring them to live.
Photo courtesy of Amazing Film Studio
Slated to open simultaneously in Taiwan and Hong Kong today, Cafe. Waiting. Love is expected to become a summer blockbuster, following the tremendous success of You Are the Apple of My Eye, which passed the previous record of HK$61 million (US$7.93 million) in 2011 to become the highest-grossing Chinese-language movie in Hong Kong’s history.
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights weakening growth momentum in South Korea. As design and foundry capabilities become more important in the AI era, Seoul risks losing competitiveness if it relies too heavily on memory chips. IMF forecasts showing Taiwan widening its lead over South Korea have fueled debate in Seoul over memory chip dependence, industrial policy and
And so, in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), all the experts on the Strait of Hormuz suddenly became experts on US-China-Taiwan relations. The Internet has certainly expanded human knowledge. Lots of these sudden experts made noise this week about Trump’s words after the meeting with PRC dictator Xi Jin-ping (習近平). Trump is going to sell out Taiwan! Longtime Taiwan commentator J. Michael Cole summed the situation up neatly in the Guardian: “We need to keep in mind that he has a tendency to say many things — sometimes contradicting himself within
There is considerable frustration and confusion among many, both in Taiwan and abroad — including in Washington — as to why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seems so dead set on using their legislative leverage to slash defense spending and disrupt the ability of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration to function. Are they pawns of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? Are they traitors? In reality, there are multiple reasons. In the first column in this series on this subject, “Donovan’s Deep Dives: How and why the TPP and KMT help Beijing” (Sat May 16, page 12), we examined three
It took 12 years and months of standing in the same mountain location for director Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) to capture a few seconds of footage: Taiwan’s largest resident raptor locking talons with its mate and spinning through the air in a courtship ritual. With only about 1,000 left in the wild and very short flight windows, the mountain hawk-eagle remains among Taiwan’s most elusive birds. The species generally produces only one offspring per year. Using forest cameras, the film crew and research teams document the arduous process the monogamous pairs go through for the chick to hatch and grow up, weathering
RSS