Mama Boy (2022) User Reviews

Enjoyable and rarely cringy

[advance512 · 7/10 · 10 February 2023]

Funny, interesting characters though most are very two dimensional, mostly predictable but at times surprises, and actually touching - focusing on relationships and less so on plot.

Saw it on a Cathay flight and was delighted.

Spoiler: about the ending. Kind of sad for Lele and kind of happy for the Mama's Boy. She took a loan, will be selling her house, is lonely, gave up on love to be good to both her son and to "let go those you love"... While he had a "clearing of the wrench in the cogs" moment, and the entire experience jump started his life - a bit more independent, confident and daring.

Wish Lele had a better ending.

Slow paced, but rather beautifully told movie...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 21 May 2023]

Right, well I have to say that the 2022 Taiwanese romantic drama "Mama Boy" is not a movie that will find a wide appeal with the general audience. Why? Well, because it is a rather slow paced movie and there wasn't really a whole lot of anything happening throughout the 98 minutes that the movie trotted on for.

However, with that being said, I will say that director Arvin Chen's 2022 movie "Mama Boy" is actually well-worth sitting down to watch, provided you enjoy movies that aren't mainstream and exactly the type that is mass produced. While the movie is slow paced, I actually found the storyline to be well written and rather beautiful actually. So writers Arvin Chen and Sunny Yu put together a rather interesting movie here.

The storyline is about a shy young man named Hsiao Hung, coming up on his 30th birthday, living with him mother and never having had a girlfriend. His cousin brings him to a love hotel to set him up with a lady, but Hsiao Hung falls in love with the mature woman Lele whom manages the girls.

The story in "Mama Boy" is a coming of age story of sorts, but also about exploring yourself and finding love in the most unlikely of places, and of personal growth. And that is what appealed to me about the storyline, because there was a deeper meaning to it, you just have to endure the slow paced narrative.

The movie stars Vivian Hsu as Le Le and Kai Ko as Hsiao Hung, both of whom put on stellar performances in the movie, and really bring the movie to life on the screen quite nicely. Again, you just have to sit through the staggeringly slow paced narrative to get to the gold.

While "Mama Boy" certainly is not a crowd pleaser of a movie, it is a movie that is well-worth checking out if you enjoy personal and realistic dramas. I was entertained throughout the course of the 98 minutes, despite finding the pacing of the movie a tad too slow. And because of the slow narrative, then I doubt that I will ever return to watch "Mama Boy" a second time.

My rating of "Mama Boy" lands on a six out of ten stars.