This lighthearted tale of repressed sexuality and marital woes seems to have a different kind of agenda, even if it often fits the mode of your typical mainstream rom-com.
Although the pacing is more laidback than in “Au revoir Taipei,” the humor more rooted in believable (if bizarre) real-life situations than in slapstick shenanigans, the comic timing remains spot-on and the jokes fetchingly offbeat in an utterly Taiwanese way.
70
Village VoiceAlan Scherstuhl
Village VoiceAlan Scherstuhl
The ending has a surfeit of sugar, but writer-director Arvin Chen's story jaunts along, a cheery rom-com tinged with dream visions and a somewhat daring conceit.
Dutifully hitting its marks up to a point, this story of a married man struggling to stay closeted proves to have a maturity that eludes more overtly ambitious dramas on the subject.
Chen's excessive propriety veers treacherously close to barely disguised repulsion.
38
Slant MagazineChris Cabin
Slant MagazineChris Cabin
Arvin Chen's Taiwan is dominated by eccentricity in tone and atmosphere, but in a very careful, pronounced way, as to never really run the danger of being truly strange.