Film review - All You Need Is Love: Richie Jen strokes his own ego with mediocre rom-com
Shu Qi's effortless charm not enough to save this badly written vehicle for Taiwanese singer
Should any pop star wish to stroke his own ego by leaping into the film director’s seat, he could at least handle it more subtly than Richie Jen Hsien-chi does with this fawning debut. While it might seem that all you need is love of your fans, it’s usually advisable for a movie to offer more than a mere set of stock emotions rolled out on autopilot.
Co-directed by Jen and Andy Luo An-de (Bang Bang Formosa) from an obvious script by Jen, Luo and five other writers, this scenic romantic comedy set in Penghu, Taiwan, paints a nauseatingly cute portrait of the singer-actor, who plays an obliviously fetching bachelor in line to conquer the heart of a beauty already set for an arranged marriage.
When Yeh Fen-fen (played by Shu Qi) visits Penghu to live out her deceased parents’ unfulfilled wish, the wealthy and seemingly fickle lady from China’s Shanxi Province realises she has unwittingly checked into the modest B&B guest house operated by Wu Sishan (Jen), who, at one point, declares himself a “handsome butler” with an alarming lack of irony.
