Friday, August 21, 2009

L-O-V-E

L-O-V-E (Ai Dao Di/愛到底), or here, is a 2009 Taiwanese romance film. It stars a large cast including Van Fan, Megan Lai, Blue Lan Zheng Long, Annie Liu Xin You, Ethan Ruan, Alice Tzeng, Tracy Zhou Cai Shi, Alec Su, Ken Zhu, Wang Zi, and Modi. The summary is as follows:

L-O-V-E contains four short films centered around love.

Determined to look after his girlfriend if he dies on the operating table, the terminally ill Van Fan searches for a man who has exactly the same voice as he has to take his place.

Blue Lan, a reticent music video director, re-encounters old flame Annie Liu and realizes a car accident has erased her memories of their love.

Movie stuntman Ethan Ruan dashes out the door after a lover’s spat with his flight attendant girlfriend, Alice Tzeng.

Plain homebody Tracy Chou turns to a fortune-teller for love advice, who tells her she’ll meet six guys sporting bangs with the last being Mr Right.

Like the summary says, the film consists of four stories that have to do with love. I pretty much refer to it as the Taiwanese version of the British film, Love Actually - except all the stories are completely independent and not interconnected in any way to the other stories. Each story starts out with it's title, starting with 三聲有幸 (3 voices, good fortune), 連命都不要的人 (People Who Don't Care About Their Lives), 幸運 (Lucky), and ending 第六號劉海男生 (The Sixth Guy With Bangs). A more elaborate synopsis of all stories can be found at Asian Fanatics. I actually thought the first one was sweet, the second one rather painful and bittersweet, the third one confusing and somewhat pointless, and the fourth one pushing the line into "over the top" but amusing and sort of frustrating, nonetheless. :) I would have liked it better if the stories were all interconnected since this way, it seemed like just a compilation of stories about love written by four completely different writers - you know, sort of like those books that compile short stories by different writers on certain genres like horror, etc.

I say it was all right - showing all the different facets of love and what it may mean to be in love.

You can watch it here.

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