When Miracle Meets Maths

大桥头恋爱梦

Taiwan, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 104 mins.

Director: Lin Junyang 林君阳.

Rating: 8/10.

Odd-couple rom-com has a slow-burning, mature charm that benefits from its two leads’ chemistry.

STORY

Taibei, the present day. Qiu Jinghui (Zhou Youting), a photographer in her early 30s who’s lived in Japan for the past eight years, has returned to visit her mother (Lu Yijing), who runs a B&B hotel in Dadaocheng, a historic area of the city. Though she’s happy being single, Qiu Jinghui humours her mother by going on blind dates she’s arranged. US-born Shi Zhengxiong (Zhang Han), who works in Silicon Valley, California, is also visiting Taibei – to find a wife with the help of his paternal aunt (Xie Qiongnuan), who arranges blind dates. She also looks after Shi Zhengxiong’s sick father (Yang Lie), who moved back to Taiwan and resents the fact that his son prefers to live in the US. Qiu Jinghui and Shi Zhengxiong first meet by chance at a teahouse, and she later discovers he’s staying at her mother’s B&B. They subsequently bump into each other when he visits a photoshoot at which he knows one of the models. Qiu Jinghui moved to Japan after breaking off an engagement to childhood friend Gao Jinlong (Gao Yingxuan) that had been encouraged by her mother. She re-meets Gao Jinlong, who’s now divorced from the woman he married on the rebound; he suggests to Qiu Jinghui that they try again, but she says there’s no point. Shi Zhengxiong visits his father but they end up arguing as usual; despite that, his aunt urges Shi Zengxiong to stay in Taiwan and take care of his father. Qiu Jinghui and Shi Zhengxiong keep on bumping into each other in Dadaocheng, and gradually they discover they have more in common than they thought.

REVIEW

Part of the Metro of Love 台北爱情捷运 series – produced by Ye Tianlun 叶天伦 (Night Market Hero 鸡排英雄, 2011) and centred on various Taibei MRT stations – When Miracle Meets Maths 大桥头恋爱梦 was the first to also get a theatrical release, only a few months after its gala premiere at the 2015 Taibei Film Festival. It’s a strong solo directing debut by Lin Junyang 林君阳, who previously co-directed foodie rom-com The Soul of Bread 爱的面包魂 (2012). With two mature leads in actress Zhou Youting 周幼婷 and actor Zhang Han 张翰, plus a slow-burning but focused screenplay by TV drama collaborators Lin Jiahui 林佳慧 and Gao Miaohui 高妙慧, it avoids the structural and dramatic weaknesses that undermined the second half of Bread.

Partly because it’s set in the scenic old district of Dadaocheng, the film has that cosy, community feel of so many Taiwan movies; but here it’s not cloyingly local or over-cute, thanks to the generally light dialogue which doesn’t rely on comic mugging, Hokkien-dialect jokes or colourful gangsters. The script’s big gamble of having a Cupid-like character on roller skates – played by Bruce 布鲁斯, aka Hong Qihan 洪奇翰, the nerdy cross-dresser in Cafe. Waiting. Love 等  一个人  咖啡 (2014) – who’s always trying to get the two leads together pretty much works, and helps to maintain a wry tone throughout.

The script essentially revolves around the idea of “coming home” for two characters who, partly to avoid family problems, prefer to live overseas. While working within many of the rom-com rules – a mismatched couple, their meet-cute, the role of “fate”, an airport finale, and so on – Lin and his writers give the material extra depth by looking at what two thirtysomethings, rather set in their ways, can possibly gain by giving up their independence. The answer, of course, is that you gain more from life as a couple than what you lose in personal freedom as individuals. But like the seemingly standard airport finale, even that message – delivered in the most non-threatening way – comes shaded with maybes.

Lin’s directing approach is unobtrusive and natural, with no strong stylistic flourishes and always in the service of the actors. (Watch the scene, about 70 minutes in, where the leads both play a piano for the way in which direction, acting, photography and editing seamlessly combine.) Lin is helped by terrific chemistry between Zhou and Zhang, both playing characters around their real ages. The younger brother of Taiwan actor Zhang Zhen 张震, and son of veteran actor Zhang Guozhu 张国柱 (whom he most closely resembles), Zhang, 42, has quietly been doing strong character work (e.g. Taipei Exchanges 第36个故事, 2009) since his debut as the elder brother in A Brighter Summer Day 牯岭街少年杀人事件 (1991). (He’s not to be confused with the younger, identically named Mainland actor-singer from movies like No Limit 无极限之危情速递, 2011, and The Rise of a Tomboy 女汉子真爱公式, 2016.) In Miracle, Zhang hints at, rather than overplays, his character’s geekiness (an ABC from Silicon Valley), which convincingly prepares the way for his later charm offensive.

However, it’s top-billed Zhou, 39, largely a TV actress with a few big-screen credits (such as the student counsellor in (Sex) Appeal 寒蝉效应, 2014), who’s the soul of the film. She downplays a role that could have been aggressively right-on into a softer, go-with-the-flow character who enjoys being single but is also open to what destiny may bring. As a small story twist and the final shot both signal – the latter with a nod to Comrades, Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 (1996) – destiny plays a heavy role in Miracle, but it’s Zhou and Zhang who make the story work on an emotionally mature level rather than just a schematic one.

Other roles are all fine without getting in the way of the two leads – including Cai Mingliang 蔡明亮 favourite Lu Yijing 陆奕静 as the heroine’s naggy mother and Gao Yingxuan 高英轩 as her still-persistent ex. Producer Ye pops up in a humorous cameo as a fortune-teller without derailing the tone. The film’s Chinese title means “Daqiaotou Love Dream”, named after the MRT station that appears in the film. (The original poster inserts a 的 in the middle, though there is none on the print.) Later, for theatrical release, the Chinese title was altered to 爱情算不算 (roughly, “Can This Be Love”) but the gobbledygook English one was left as is.

CREDITS

Produced by Good Image (TW), Gala Television (TW).

Script: Lin Jiahui, Gao Miaohui. Photography: Pei Jiwei. Editing: Lin Zhenghong. Music: uncredited. Art direction: Tang Jiahong. Styling: Yao Jun. Sound: Cai Duyi.

Cast: Zhou Youting (Qiu Jinghui), Zhang Han (Shi Zhengxiong/Sean), Gao Yingxuan (Gao Jinlong/Ron), Lu Yijing (Qiu Jinghui’s mother), Yang Lie (Shi Zhengxiong’s father), Xie Qiongnuan (Shi Zhengxiong’s paternal aunt), Bruce [Hong Qihan] (Xiaoqiu/Peter/Pitt Cutie), Ji Peihui [Teresa Daley] (Xiaojie), Kato Yuki (Yuli), Liao Peiyu (young Qiu Jinghui), Xie Fei (young Shi Zhengxiong), Long Shaohua (pen-shop owner), Ye Tianlun (fortune-teller), Kang Yinyin (first blind-date woman), Liu Yuyan (blind-date man), Li Ruoxuan (second blind-date woman), Huang Congwen (Uncle Wang/Ang), Xiaobai (postboy), Zhang Zhongrui (old man), Lena (foreign female model), Chen Xiangfu (foreign male model).

Premiere: Taipei Film Festival (Gala Premieres), 8 Jul 2015.

Release: Taiwan, 30 Oct 2015.