Cute Girl (Lovable You, Jiu shi liu liu de ta, Taiwan 1980)

A few years ago Eureka released a Blu-ray of the early films of Hou Hsiao-hsien and I’ve managed to rent the first disc in the set which features two films. Cute Girl  (aka Lovable You) is Hou’s first film. As several reviewers have pointed out, these early films will come as a shock to cinephiles familiar with the later films from Hou. He is now thought of as an intellectual filmmaker whose films present a challenge even to fans like me. By contrast, these early films seem to be the polar opposite – broad, popular comedies. Fortunately the ingredients of these early films aren’t that unfamiliar to me as I remember my first encounters with Hong Kong popular genre films and especially the broad comedy of the Chinese New Year films. The  important context is that in 1980 filmmaking in Taiwan was in the first stage of development away from the propaganda line of the Kuomintang government. This was a time of upheaval in Taiwan. External events such as the withdrawal of American support and internal attempts to create a democratic opposition initially pushed the country into crisis before gradually seeing the beginnings of a liberalisation of cultural activity. This process involved a period of martial law before new ideas about film making and film culture could be introduced gradually . Previously, films had emerged from a state controlled studio system and also via commercial arrangements with Hong Kong producers – which among other popular genres included the wuxia films of King Hu in the 1960s and 1970s such as Dragon Inn (Hong Kong-Taiwan 1967) and A Touch of Zen (Taiwan 1970-71).

The key moment in the development of what became Taiwanese New Cinema (TNC) was the decision to make a compendium film in 1982 which showcased new ideas. In Our Time comprised four short films, including one by Edward Yang who would become the other leading figure of TNC alongside Hou. Though produced by the conservative Central Motion Picture Corporation, these four films one set in each decade from the 1950s to the 1980s dealt with stories about people in contemporary Taiwan rather than the generic characters of traditional Chinese melodramas, wuxia or other ‘escapist’ genres. Hou would work on a similar compendium film The Sandwich Man (1983) which comprised adaptations of short stories about life in Taiwan during the American-influenced Cold War period. In this context we can see Cute Girl as an ‘in-between’ film with Hou making a familiar genre film but perhaps beginning to slip in  some new elements.

Cute Girl is a rom-com featuring Taiwanese pop star Fong Fei-Fei as Wen Wen, the daughter of a Taipei businessman who hopes to marry her off to a young man studying as a chemist in France. The father sees this as a possible ‘business marriage’. But he doesn’t know that Wen Wen has plans to meet more young men and to put off ‘settling down’. Eventually she will meet a young man from a more modest background, Da-gang, who works as a draughtsman for a civil engineering company. He’s also played by a pop star, Kenny Bee from Hong Kong. The ‘meet cute’ happens in the countryside where Da-gang is surveying a new road project and Wen Wen has decided to visit her aunt. But Da-gang has seen her before, he just hasn’t had the chance to meet her. There is an interesting social conflict in the plot because Da-gang and his surveying team are surveying the route of the road that is intended to go straight through a house. Wen Wen and Da-gang meet just as Da-Gang is bitten by a caterpillar. He is led to believe that the bite is by a poisonous snake. There is no time to get him to a hospital but the local snake expert who could help him is – yes, you’ve guessed it – the man whose house the road would demolish. This a rom-com so he survives and the social conflict is forgotten.

There are several non-diegetic song sequences in the film and at least one quasi-diegetic musical number. Da-gang’s young adopted son provides some entertainment and children generally in the countryside get up to mischief. Back in the city, the potential France-based suitor appears and we enter a traditional arranged marriage scenario in which Auntie will side with Wen Wen versus her father. We know how the narrative will end and we’re not surprised by a pregnant Wen Wen under the love tree near her Auntie’s house in the countryside with Da-gang beside her. A Chinese New Year greeting appears in part of the carefully composed image. Hou has done his commercial job and delivered a feelgood romcom. The film is generally well-photographed by Chen Kun-hou and Hou’s own script does include several quite funny sight gags as well as its gentle undermining of the traditional ‘business marriage’ arrangement adopted by Wen Wen’s father. Da-gang also has an interesting background as presumably a boy from an orphanage, although I confess to not being sure about this – but at least his social conscience is alive and well compared to the business culture espoused by Wen Wen’s father. The younger people in the film do seem vaguely progressive compared to the traditions of their parents’ generation. I enjoyed the film as a well-made entertainment. But we will have move a few years on for Hou’s investigations of Taiwanese history to begin to raise social issues properly. Next up is Green, Green Grass of Home in 1982 with Kenny Bee again.

Here’s a Teaser for the Blu-ray restoration featuring another carefully constructed sight gag at the end as Wen Wen arrives at her Auntie’s home. As the railer implies, the film was shot in ‘Scope: