Cute Girl (1980, Hou Syao-syan) [sic]

44/100

Yes, that's how his surname was transliterated on contemporaneous prints—not a subtitle. (Actually a helpful indication of how Hsiao-hsien is pronounced. I've always said something closer to Shao-shen.) Cute Girl, alternately known in English as Lovable You, was Hou's debut feature, and while I predictably found some fans working hard to identify the seeds of future austere greatness, it could not in fact be more conventionally dopey a romcom if it starred McConaughey during the decade preceding the McConnaissance. Actually, what sorta gets anticipated here is the Farrelly Brothers—not in terms of any taboo-prodding grossout, but the male lead (played by pop star Kenny Bee, who failed to charm me in My Heart Is That Eternal Rose and seemed equally uncharismatic here) has adopted an orphan who accompanies him in almost every scene, serving a function similar to various minor disabled characters in Farrelly comedies, and both lovers occasionally break into song, without the movie ever quite becoming a bona fide musical. (There's also the Taiwanese equivalent of a Richman-esque troubadour, though only heard, not seen. You're never more than five minutes distant from a peppy tune taking over the soundtrack.) Could've been appealing, but this decidedly ain't my sense of humor; a representative gag involves someone getting bitten by a non-poisonous snake and being given a laxative as supposed anti-venom medicine that will save his life. Unlike the Farrellys, Hou doesn't then show the explosive results, that's all implied, but still. It's the kind of romcom in which the boy sits beneath a tree, unaware that the girl's sitting above in its branches, and proceeds to talk to himself aloud about his feelings for her, as people do. Harmless, but I was more excited by Cute Girl's bright yellow Triumph TR7 than by anything in the narrative (and I'm not even a car guy). Also unless I missed something the whole ostensible conflict about Dull Boy working for surveyors who plan to build a road straight through the house belonging to one of Cute Girl's country neighbors just gets dropped midway through the film without ever having been resolved. Surprised Fong Fei-fei, who was likewise a pop star, didn't have much of a subsequent movie career, though. She is indeed pretty damn cute.