Review | Fall in Love at First Kiss film review: Jelly Lin, Darren Wang in Taiwanese take on popular Japanese teen romance
- Frankie Chen Yu-shan’s film is the latest in a long line of screen adaptations of Kaoru Tada’s manga Itazura na Kiss
- Its conclusion is as inevitable as it is contrived and naggingly frustrating, but is likely to be forgiven by the series’ loyal fan base
3/5 stars
With Fall in Love at First Kiss, Taiwanese TV veteran Frankie Chen Yu-shan follows up the success of her feature film debut Our Times with another fanciful tale of adolescent romance.
The film is the latest in a long line of screen adaptations of Kaoru Tada’s manga Itazura na Kiss, which details the exhaustive efforts of a pretty yet dim high-school senior to win the affections of a top flight student.
With an IQ of 200, Zhi-shu (Darren Wang Da-lu) is an academic overachiever, as well as an impressive athlete, which has won him legions of adoring fans both at school and on social media. When Xiang-qin (Jelly Lin Yun) professes her love for him, he is quick to dismiss her, announcing that he doesn’t date “dumb girls”.
A cruel twist of fate, however, sees Xiang-qin and her father (Tai Chih-yuan) move in with Zhi-shu’s family, bringing the mismatched would-be lovers together. But Zhi-shu continues to reject Xiang-qin, despite her efforts to improve in her exams, on the running track and elsewhere.
Lin, the breakout star of Stephen Chow’s 2016 holiday hit Mermaid , once again taps into the self-deprecating goofiness that worked so well in that film, ensuring Xiang-qin retains the audience’s sympathies despite her increasingly desperate behaviour.
On the other hand, Wang, who starred in Our Times, has his work cut out to portray the unobtainable Zhi-shu as anything other than insufferably rude and arrogant, and he succeeds only on the rarest of occasions.
Chen frequently spotlights marginalised female protagonists in her work, who regularly fall for ill-suited boys, be they thugs or snobs. Xiang-qin repeatedly makes a fool of herself publicly, but it is her resilience that makes her endearing.
Less obvious is why she would persist with chasing Zhi-shu for so long, when he is never anything but wholly unpleasant to her. The behaviour of the central protagonists doesn’t set a particularly healthy example for young male or female viewers, but judging by the longevity of the property’s success, the unattainable fantasy seems to far outweigh any more tangible life lessons.
Tada, the manga’s author, tragically died before completing the original series, which had already covered many years of Xiang-qin and Zhi-shu’s bumpy relationship. The resolution of Chen’s film comes sooner, but is as inevitable as it is contrived and naggingly frustrating.
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One suspects the faithful fan base will be more forgiving of the outcome, despite what it peddles as acceptable ways for young men and women to behave and treat each other.
