The Soul of Bread

爱的面包魂

Taiwan, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 112 mins.

Directors: Gao Bingquan 高炳权, Lin Junyang 林君阳.

Rating: 6/10.

Modest but charming foodie rom-com is undercut by a lack of dramatic focus.

STORY

A small town in southern Taiwan, the present day. At a small bakery shop owned by her father (Liao Jun), Qiu Xiaoping (Chen Yanxi) urges her boyfriend, pastry chef Gao Binghong (Chen Handian), to enter a baking contest in France, as she has always wanted to get out of Taiwan and see the wider world. Gao Binghong has already proposed to Qiu Xiaoping but she hasn’t given him her answer yet. One day, after suffering a career crisis following the death of his mother, Asian writer Su Wenwen (Cai Shuzhen), half-Chinese, French-born Jean-Pierre, aka Brad (Ni Andong), host of the successful TV show Brad’s Bread, turns up in the town, where his mother was born, in search of his roots. After meeting Qiu Xiaoping, he asks to serve an apprenticeship with her father, as he’s in search of fresh inspiration for his baking career. Qiu Xiaoping’s father agrees, for the price of a saxophone he wants to buy. At a local cookery class, Brad wins the hearts and hormones of the locals with his baking skills, but also earns the dislike of the less worldly Gao Binghong, especially when he makes it clear he’ll do battle for Qiu Xiaoping’s affections.

REVIEW

A re-working by Taiwan director Gao Bingquan 高炳权 of his 2007 PTS TV movie of the same title (see left), The Soul of Bread 爱的面包魂 is a modestly charming, foodie rom-com that ends up extolling traditional small-town values over more seductive foreign ones. In culinary terms, it’s a competition between a local-born baker and a famous half-Taiwan TV chef who comes looking for his roots; in rom-com terms, it’s a battle between sincerity and ambition for the heart of a local girl with her eyes on broader horizons.

Gao’s new version, running over half-an-hour longer than the original comedy, rarely palls thanks to its array of colourful supporting characters, plenty of minor suplots, and a performance by Chen Yanxi 陈妍希 [Michelle Chen] that discreetly anchors the movie as her two screen suitors do battle. But after a strong first half, the script’s weaknesses start to become apparent as the movie becomes more and more local in its horizons and doesn’t generate enough real drama around the central triangle.

Bread is always watchable, and often cutely endearing, but in the end falls victim to its own modesty and lack of dramatic focus: Gao and co-director Lin Junyang 林君阳 seem unsure whether they’re making a triangular rom-com, a save-our-local-bakery comedy, or a portrait of small-town values. To judge by a toe-curling final paean to the virtues of Taiwan and its good, honest people, it appears to be the last.

Chen, 28, so good as the deaf swimmer in Hear Me 听说 (2009) and the goody two-shoes student in hit high-school movie You Are the Apple of My Eye 那些年，我们一起追的女孩 (2011), impressively morphs from being a pouty, rather annoying wannabe into a sympathetic character, though the script typically blows the finale with a sudden change of heart that seems unmotivated by anything that’s gone before. As her childhood admirer, comic Chen Handian 陈汉典, 27, is actually the best-drawn of the three leads and nicely reined back, apart from a couple of fantasy sequences where he’s allowed to let rip. His role is far more sympathetic than that of Amerasian singer Ni Anle 倪安东 [Anthony Neely], 25, whose English-speaking TV chef Brad comes over as little more than a cultural carpetbagger.

The rest of the cast is littered with local names in supporting roles, including cartoonist Wan Wan 弯弯 (billed under her real name Hu Jiawei 胡家玮) playing the heroine’s friend as in You Are the Apple of My Eye; veteran actor-presenter Liao Jun 廖峻, excellent as the girl’s saxophone-playing, cussing father; fellow veteran Chen Yingjie 陈盈洁, amusing as a neighbour who’s turned on by Brad’s cheese-brandy baguettes; and Cai Shezhen 蔡淑臻 (Mysterious Island 孤岛惊魂, 2011; Starry Starry Night 星空, 2011) in dreamy flashbacks as Brad’s writer mother. Several actors from the original TV movie also appear in cameos here: Gao Zhihong 高志宏 [who originally played the male lead] as a policeman, Qiu Qifa 邱启发 as a horny neighbour friend of the father, and Yan Shengyu 焉胜宇 as a friend of the local pastry chef.

Technical credits are very professional, with veteran d.p. Yang Weihan 杨渭汉 making the pastry scenes as succulent as possible. The original title literally means “Love’s Bread Soul”. For the record, there’s a musical number after the end credits have finished that appears to have been cut out from earlier in the film but deemed too funny to lose entirely.

CREDITS

Presented by Double Edge Entertainment (TW), Ming Yi International Media (TW), TC-1 Culture Fund (TW), HIM International Music (TW), Kaohsiung City Government (TW). Produced by Double Edge Entertainment (TW), Ming Yi International Media (TW).

Script: Mu Er. Original story: Gao Bingquan, Jian Shigeng, PTS Taiwan. Photography: Yang Weihan. Editing: Gu Xiaoyun. Music: Wang Xiwen. Song music: Wang Xiwen. Lyrics: Gao Bingquan, Jian Shigeng, Big A. Art direction: Tang Weixuan. Costumes: Chen Yaojun. Sound: Wang Yanbin. Martial arts: Yang Zhilong. Visual effects: Lin Zhemin. Animation: Bulky Animation Studio. Food design: Liu Guanting.

Cast: Chen Handian (Gao Binghong/Pastry), Chen Yanxi [Michelle Chen] (Qiu Xiaoping/Sabrina), Ni Andong [Anthony Neely] (Jean-Pierre/Brad), Liao Jun (Qiu Xiaoping’s father), Chen Yingjie (horny female neighbour), Lai Chengde (Qiu Xiaoping’s younger brother), Li Xianglin (Hao Feilei, policewoman), Yan Shengyu (Kun, Gao Binghong’s friend), Wan Wan [Hu Jiawei] (Juan, Qiu Xiaoping’s friend), Qiu Qifa (horny male neighbour), Cai Shuzhen (Su Wenwen/Sophia, Brad’s mother), Ke Shuqin (Qiu Xiaoping’s mother), Huang Lvegeng (Soup Stew, master), Gao Zhihong (Tian Xiong, Hao Feilei’s police colleague), Xie Yilin (woman in restaurant), Ye Futai (baking competition judge), Huang Taicheng (Uncle Taisen), Xu Ruidian (Uncle Ruidian), Chen Xuezhen (Lili, breakfast-shop owner), Lu Chuyun (Kenneth), Jiang Wenjie (baking competition judge), Zeng Yingyu (young Qiu Xiaoping), Lin Jinliang (young Gao Binghong), Victoria Craig (CGN newscaster), Yao Linyu, Zhong Huiru, Zhong Huiqi, Zhong Peilun (breakfast-shop children), Qiu Ye Guimi (breakfast-shop nanny).

Release: Taiwan, 3 Feb 2012.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 15 Mar 2012.)