Fall in Love at First Kiss [Yi wen ding qing] **** (2019, Talu Wang, Yun Lin, Li-Tung Chang) – Movie Review

Director Frankie Chen [Yu Shan Chen]’s Chinese teen romcom Fall in Love at First Kiss is sweet, cute, charming, fun and amusing. It pulls off the clever trick of balancing broad slapstick comedy with full-on romance. Hey, it is a romcom that is both funny and romantic. Well, that’s nice!

Jelly Lin [Yun Lin] stars as non-brainy pretty high school student Xiang-Qin, who notices brainy pretty boy Jiang Zhi-Shu (Talu Wang) – school champ with an IQ of 200 – and falls in love with him but, when she summons up courage to tell him, he tells her in public that he doesn’t like dumb women. That just seems to make Xiang-Qin more determined.

When their house is ruined by an earthquake, Xiang-Qin and her father move in with her father’s college buddy. It turns out to be the house of Jiang Zhi-Shu’s parents. Jiang remains unimpressed, and even seems to have found another love.

The film starts with an accidental kiss between the two leads, and the whole question is just how on earth are they going to keep the young lovers apart for two hours before the inevitable happy ending with a true kiss – and more maybe! Another question could be how boring is this likely to be. But the writers keep it deliciously light, bubbly and frothy. It makes dim seem smart, just like the heroine’s character.

The script by Zero Huang [Chi-Jou Huang] and Yung-Ting Tseng, based on a manga by Kaoru Tada, is totally, gleefully empty-headed but enormous fun. It is much ado about nothing, but written as though it is actually Shakespeare. The film is done with great energy and conviction, and much style, by Taiwan-born female director Frankie Chen, racing over the film’s absurdities with elan.

Above all it is expertly performed, especially by the two appealing young stars, who manage to make their potentially silly and annoying characters ingratiating and winning. These parts are very tricky to play, and the two play them perfectly. The film totally stands or falls on them, so it stands, and stands tall.

There are other good players though, too. Kenji Chen [Louis Chen] as the rival boy for the love of Xiang-Qin, Christy Chung as Jiang’s mother and Christopher Ming-Shun Lee as Jiang’s father and Chih-Yuan Tai as Xiang-Qin’s father Ah Li are all effective in support.

American cinema would die to be able to pull this idea off. So would British cinema. It takes a huge lot of skill and confidence to make it look as easy as this – and as much good-natured fun.

It is filmed in Mandarin. The American sub-titles are fairly deplorable, full of gaps and mistakes, but they will have to do.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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