It’s always a letdown when the opening sequence is the most interesting part of a movie. Luckily the scene, set in an outer space noodle restaurant whose food’s taste changes according to the owner’s mood, reoccurs throughout Didi’s Dreams (吃吃的愛), which is otherwise a rather pedestrian, over-the-top sap fest that has become typical of Taiwanese comedies.
It does have entertainment value, though, being one of those films that seems to be somewhat aware that it is cheesy, even going as far as to poke fun at itself and other cringe-worthy romance flicks. This may be its saving grace as the results are quite funny at certain points. The production is superb, living up to its whopping NT$250 million budget.
While food does play a minor part in the “main” story, one can’t help but wonder if the Chinese film title (literally “eat eat love”) would be more apt if it was entirely set in the outer space restaurant. It seems like a fun place with all kinds of bizarrely dressed customers who we first see competing to see who can stay still for the longest time. The core of the restaurant is the soup, which only the owner (Dee Hsu, 徐熙娣) can touch — and with her heart broken, the customers can taste her tears. When an astronaut garbageman seduces her and steals her soup … well, that’s the beginning of a promising movie.
Photo courtesy of Kbro Media
Instead, the main focus is Shangguan Didi (上官娣娣), also played by Hsu, who supposedly dreams of the restaurant every night (there’s a clever plot twist involving these two worlds that we don’t dare reveal). Her life is far less interesting as an aspiring actress who lives in the shadow of her superstar older sister, Shangguan Lingling (上官玲玲), played by Lin Chi-ling (林志玲). Their tense relationship drives the main plot as the two eventually end up being cast in the same movie. Here, the excessive plot devices to elicit all kinds of emotions are unleashed, probably to mask the thin storyline. And of course, you have the prerequisite ultra-considerate, caring boyfriend (Jin Shijia, 金世佳) who never leaves Didi’s side and even cuts her nails for her.
Given their professional standing in the film, it’s ironic that Lin, arguably Taiwan’s most famous female model, can’t really act or deliver her lines properly. Hsu is obviously more talented as far as entertaining goes (even lending her voice to the soundtrack, including a brainwashing tongue twister about a carp and a donkey) but in the film she can only land bit roles as zombies or bacteria in a stomach medicine commercial. She plays the carefree, impulsive and blunt Didi well, creating a likeable character that refers to herself as laoniang (老娘, this old lady).
Those even vaguely familiar with Taiwanese pop culture should know that the film will have its guaranteed audience from the fan base of the wildly popular variety show Here Comes Kangxi (康熙來了), hosted by Hsu and Kevin Tsai (蔡康永). The show aired its final episode last January, and those who miss the show should be excited about the reunion of the pair, although Tsai doesn’t appear on screen in his directorial debut. But only those very familiar with Taiwanese pop culture would know that several actors who play sadistic casting agents in the movie who give Didi a hard time are former guests who have been pranked by the hosts in the past.
As the show was also a smash hit in China, it’s no surprise that this is a joint Chinese-Taiwanese production. As a result you have a mix of Chinese and Taiwanese actors, which is not as bad as Hong Kong-China productions that switch incessantly between Cantonese and Mandarin as if the two languages are mutually intelligible. This kind of fantastical film is not aiming for authenticity, but it’s still a bit jarring when characters speak in different accents in a vague setting where the street scenes go from Taiwan to China in one motorcycle trip, and the subtitles inexplicably switches from simplified to traditional Chinese in different scenes. We don’t want to get too political here, but the audience does notice these things and it can be quite disconcerting. Unfortunately, there’s just so much more money to be made on the other side of the Taiwan Strait that there’s no stopping this trend.
Water management is one of the most powerful forces shaping modern Taiwan’s landscapes and politics. Many of Taiwan’s township and county boundaries are defined by watersheds. The current course of the mighty Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) was largely established by Japanese embankment building during the 1918-1923 period. Taoyuan is dotted with ponds constructed by settlers from China during the Qing period. Countless local civic actions have been driven by opposition to water projects. Last week something like 2,600mm of rain fell on southern Taiwan in seven days, peaking at over 2,800mm in Duona (多納) in Kaohsiung’s Maolin District (茂林), according to
It’s Aug. 8, Father’s Day in Taiwan. I asked a Chinese chatbot a simple question: “How is Father’s Day celebrated in Taiwan and China?” The answer was as ideological as it was unexpected. The AI said Taiwan is “a region” (地區) and “a province of China” (中國的省份). It then adopted the collective pronoun “we” to praise the holiday in the voice of the “Chinese government,” saying Father’s Day aligns with “core socialist values” of the “Chinese nation.” The chatbot was DeepSeek, the fastest growing app ever to reach 100 million users (in seven days!) and one of the world’s most advanced and
The latest edition of the Japan-Taiwan Fruit Festival took place in Kaohsiung on July 26 and 27. During the weekend, the dockside in front of the iconic Music Center was full of food stalls, and a stage welcomed performers. After the French-themed festival earlier in the summer, this is another example of Kaohsiung’s efforts to make the city more international. The event was originally initiated by the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in 2022. The goal was “to commemorate [the association’s] 50th anniversary and further strengthen the longstanding friendship between Japan and Taiwan,” says Kaohsiung Director-General of International Affairs Chang Yen-ching (張硯卿). “The first two editions
It was Christmas Eve 2024 and 19-year-old Chloe Cheung was lying in bed at home in Leeds when she found out the Chinese authorities had put a bounty on her head. As she scrolled through Instagram looking at festive songs, a stream of messages from old school friends started coming into her phone. Look at the news, they told her. Media outlets across east Asia were reporting that Cheung, who had just finished her A-levels, had been declared a threat to national security by officials in Hong Kong. There was an offer of HK$1m (NT$3.81 million) to anyone who could assist
RSS