ReviewMan in Love movie review: Taiwanese romance starring Roy Chiu, Hsu Wei-ning is heartfelt but its premise is questionable
- Man in Love, a Taiwanese remake of a Korean film, employs the troubling trope that the love of a good woman can redeem the most flawed of characters
- The film is schizophrenic in its genre switching from lighthearted romcom to weepy melodrama, but succeeds in capturing some genuinely heartfelt moments
3/5 stars
The unlikely romance between a loan shark and one of his debtors is the focus of Man in Love, a Taiwanese remake of the 2014 Korean romance of the same name.
Director Yin Chen-hao smooths over the sharper edges of that earlier film, which strayed into some wholly problematic territory regarding power dynamics, and succeeds in capturing some genuinely heartfelt moments, despite the ever-present threat of bankruptcy and violence.
Roy Chiu Tse (Dear Ex) stars as A-Cheng, the low-level debt collector with a heart of gold, as likely to bring a cash gift for his struggling targets as dish out violence over late payment. After tracking down one elderly debtor in hospital, he is instantly smitten by the man’s daughter, Hao-ting (Hsu Wei-ning, Home Sweet Home), an intelligent, no-nonsense young woman who works at the local farmers’ association.
Having assumed her ailing father’s debt, Hao-ting has no means of paying back his substantial loan. A-Cheng proposes that she work off the sum by going on a series of dates with him. Reluctantly she agrees, on the condition their relationship remain purely platonic. Inevitably, romance blossoms between the mismatched pair, but when A-Cheng attempts to leave his life of crime, he attracts the ire of his former boss, the fearsome Madam Cai (Chung Hsin-ling).