I’ve always been in love with Hong Kong movies as most of you already know. This year, I’ve been watching a few Taiwanese flicks. I do enjoy to watch a lot of Taiwanese dramas and most of my favorite singers are from Taiwan. I guess its not too surprising that watching full-length movies was the next step! If you don’t know, I used to read a lot of Chinese books as well, and this movie You Are the Apple of my Eye is based on the source material by Giddens Ko who makes his directorial debut also.
Here’s the trailer to start things off:
Director: Giddens Ko
Cast: Zhendong Ke, Michelle Chen, Shao-Wen Hao, Owodog, Chang-Tsien Tsai, Sheng-yu Yen, Wan Wan
This is a semi-autobiographical story about the author’s first crush throughout high school which grew as he started seeing the good in her and in turn influencing him to be a hardworking person to impress her. Almost everyone can relate to having crush in school. In this case, the author in his high school days, Ching-Teng Ko along with his four best friends, Kuo-Sheng Tsao, Ming-Ho Hsieh, Ying-Hung Liao, Bo-Chun Hsu, who are all different in their own way but all followed the biggest crush of their life Chia-Yi Shen, the smartest and prettiest girl of their class, throughout junior and senior high. Ching-Teng never saw what his other friends did until one day he stands up for her to take the blame from the teacher and gets punished and unknowingly gets Chia-yi to notice him and gradually, he starts seeing her beauty and falls for her also.
Just to make this clear, although I don’t know the difference it would make. I did read Giddens Ko novels BUT, I read two of his twisted horror ones only. I do have one of his romance ones that I started but never finished yet and I haven’t read this particular one although I intend on getting to it eventually. He is an incredibly talented author and as a director, I have to say he does a pretty good job at making this romantic drama-comedy appealing for the audience. The only thing is that maybe some of the humor is very `”Taiwanese” comedy and its something that you get a bit more if you watch Taiwanese drama. Even for me, there was parts I was a bit weirded out in the beginning. Plus, it was a really close look at adolescent boys in high school and the fascination over sex and masturbation and the extremity of it and all. (I see weird search terms getting to this already…)
I have never watched these young actors before. They did a really great job at this and just pulling us into the story gradually. At the beginning, I felt this story a bit all over the place but as the story progressed, it turned from the necessary absurdity to a very sweet youthful and cute story of unrelentless pursuit for love. Michelle Chen is a very charismatic and pretty actress and fits right in the role. Her chemistry with Zhendong Ke was actually part of what drove this movie to be cute. It pulled me right into this romance flick.
The comic relief has to be the young actors who play with Zhendong Ke as his best friends. Every time the whole group was together, they reflected high school and how the days of being young was. The days of not really having a lot of worry about but your life and then how they learn more about love, friendship and thinking about their future as they make the transition in life to the next step.
This flick is really entertaining and heartwarming and just totally awesome. As awkward as some of the humor was, it does reach out and pull the audience into the story. Its fun and really sweet for some parts of it as well. A nice little trip back to high school and although I never was the popular and smart girl with lots of guys running after me, its youthful energy won my heart! You remember (500) Days of Summer? It made me feel a bit like that! Give this one a chance if it crosses your path! 🙂
Tranquil Dreams 