Review | My Best Friend’s Breakfast movie review: Taiwanese high-school romantic comedy starring Moon Lee and Eric Chou has very limited appeal
- Only young fans of its fresh-faced cast are likely to enjoy My Best Friend’s Breakfast, which is based on a bestselling novel translated multiple times
- Far more fascinating story strands are sidelined in favour of the main character’s bumbling and increasingly exasperating antics
2/5 stars
Inspired by an apparently true story that first appeared on a university message board in 2015, My Best Friend’s Breakfast became a bestselling novel for author Misa and has been published in numerous languages, before making its inevitable transition to the big screen.
A high-school romcom populated by awkward, inarticulate teens and stuffed with misunderstandings and misconceptions that could be remedied by a single conversation, this directorial debut of veteran screenwriter Ryan Tu will be catnip for fans of its young fresh-faced cast, but borderline interminable for everybody else.
Never one to stay out of other people’s business, Wei-xin comes, unsolicited, to the aid of swim team hunk You-quan (Eric Chou) after overhearing him fighting with his unfaithful girlfriend, by setting him up with her BFF and the school’s most sought-after belle, Qi-ran (Jean Ho).
Wei-xin’s meddling results in Qi-ran being sent two breakfasts each morning by her new secret admirer, which Wei-xin inevitably eats herself.