Au Revoir Taipei / 一頁台北 (2010)

When you try to mix a dash of crime theft with a bowl of rom-com, you're basically gonna end up with something like Au Revoir Taipei. This big screen debut of Chinese-American director, Arvin Chen, tells a story of young man called Kai, who's so lovesick that he even tried in his cheap way to learn French language to impress his long distance girlfriend who clearly—as we can tell from the first 10 minutes of the movie—is not interested anymore. Kai works for his parents in a small noodle restaurant and constantly wonders when he'll finally be able to fly to Paris to see his girlfriend. He's not the only character that you'd want to care about, the bigger picture patches together into one horizontal storyline, including point of views from a couple of buddy cops, a chill gangster leader and his eerily deadpan nephew, the dance-enthusiast bookstore employee Susie, and ordinary minimart shop assistant Gao (who like his name, is literally so gao—tall), another hopeless romantic boy with a love interest coworker named Peach 🍑

If jazz is a movie genre that's set in modern day Taiwan that's so densely packed with activities at night through the lens of local dwellers, I'd like to imagine it looking like this one. Au Revoir offers a feel-good slice-of-life story with uncomplicated direction that will make you smile at the end. The crime part of the movie is kinda lacking in action, but enough to drive the whole story together to where it wants to be. Despite being pretty mediocre with the premise, director Chen manages to give his own fresh take on the slapstick moments that has been redid over and over again in past movies. Other than the uplifting rhythmic soundtrack that often played while these people are in the middle of intense scenes, the best parts of this movie is definitely the sneaky mouth-watering food scenes every now and then. Really makes you crave for that noodle and dumplings!

The setting of the movie in cosy downtown Taipei neighbourhood at night is so organic. To people who have never stayed in China before, this is a good illustration of what life is like for majority of lower-middle class citizen there. Family run businesses where both couple are working side by side, eating out with a friend at night market after work or classes, gangster business just a couple blocks from your house (kinda extreme), brightly lit neon signs on almost every building—to me this is comforting to see.

You know that feeling when you took a sip of sweet milk tea and caught some chewy boba between your teeth? Watching this movie kinda feels like that.