Update from the 57th Golden Horse Award:
The movie is the biggest winner for this year Golden Horse Award, bagging 5 awards as follow:
- Best Film
- Best director – Chen Yu-hsun
- Best original screenplay – Chen Yu-hsun
- Best visual effects – Tomi Kuo
- Best editing – Lai Hsiu-hsiung
Congratulations to them all for the wonderful performance and effort in this movie.
My Missing Valentine (消失的情人节）is a fantasy romance comedy movie which illustrates the love story of 2 individuals with opposite personalities. As the name suggests, the story took place during Valentine’s day where most singles desire to find a partner to celebrate this special day. It seems to be another typical love story to me at the beginning of the movie, but as the story develops, it was actually very interesting and hilarious which is definitely worth watching, especially to all the singles out there. Without any further ado, let’s review the movie, shall we?
Storyline
The movie began with Hsiao-chi (Patty Lee) making a police report about losing one full day. The policeman was as puzzled as the audience but he still went ahead to file the report. Then, the story went several years back to introduce young Hsiao-chi who was always one step ahead of the rest. She sings ahead of others, jumps the gun, poses and shuts her eyes before everyone in group photos. Boys who tried to date her failed to catch up with her pace, which explained why she remains single even in her 30s.
Fast forward to the present day, Hsiao Chi now works as a post office counter clerk where she is perfectly quick and agile. She meets all sorts of customers at work but no one really caught her attention, even Tai (Liu Kuan-ting) who sends regular mails at the post office where Xiao Chi works. Unlike Hsiao Chi, Tai is always one step behind the rest. He throws late for rock–paper–scissors, swinging at the ball too late and always fails to catch up with others’ pace. Fortunately, his uncle was able to get him a job as a bus driver so that he can simply work with fixed schedule.
On Valentine’s Day eve, Hsiao Chi bumped into a gentle and cute community folk dance teacher (Duncan Lai) . To her surprise, the teacher also had a crush on her and asked her out for a date on Valentine’s Day! She was on cloud nine as she went home to prepare for her special date with the dance teacher. As she wakes up the next day, Valentine’s Day somehow has already passed!? Everyone except Hsiao Chi didn’t seemed to panicked over the “missing” Valentine’s Day, as though they have already celebrated Valentine’s day. This led to her making the police report, which brings back to the start of the movie. Therefore, what exactly happened on that Valentine’s day which Hsiao Chi couldn’t recall and how is Tai involved in this love story? Watch the movie to find out.
Overall, the storyline was easy to follow despite several back and forth in the movie. The use of movie title to transit from one story to another story brings out the creativity of the director Chen Yu-hsun to introduce both characters. I admired how the director was able to combine 3 different genre (Fantasy, Romance and Comedy) perfectly in one single movie. In addition, the movie brings out the inner thoughts and feelings of a person who is single, from fantasing of having a partner to having a partner to celebrate Valentine’s day with. I believe most singles can relate to the movie very well and wish to be able to spend Valentine’s day with a partner. However, to those singles out there still waiting to find a partner, here’s a quote from the movie which I find it very meaningful and may bring some enlightenment to you :
你要好好爱自己，因为有人爱着你。
Love yourself because there’s someone who loves you.
Character Development
Let’s talk more about the 2 main characters in detail. First we have the female lead Hsiao Chi, the fast paced lady who is living alone in a rented room. She was living previously with her parents and during the flashback to her younger days, she met her father (Ayugo Huang) on the road while she was on her way home one night. She asked her father to buy her favourite beancurd with green bean topping on his way back later. Sadly, he never return and remained missing for many years. Nobody have any clue of her father’s disappearance but she remain hopeful that her father will return one day. Back to the present day, she was very excited and eager to celebrate Valentine’s day with the cute community folk dance teacher. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned earlier, Valentine’s day did not arrived for her and she was desperate to find out the reason behind her missing Valentine. As she went on this discovery journey for her missing Valentine, she began to find out more about her past and the entire story began to connect. It was a roller coaster ride for Hsiao Chi emotionally as she went from having a partner for Valentine’s day to being single again and then to be with someone again. Every transition from one stage to another brings about a change in her feelings and thoughts towards the male lead which I’m going to cover next.
Speaking about Tai, as he was struggling to keep up with the pace of others, he had someone who motivates him and that person turned out to be Hsiao Chi. Apparently, Tai knew Hsiao Chi for a very long time, even though I can’t say the same for Hsiao Chi. He devoted all his time and efforts to be able to see her, which explained his daily visit to the postal office where she works. He had a long crush on Hsiao Chi but couldn’t find the courage to approach her. After finding out that Hsiao Chi had a partner for Valentine’s day, he was devastated and decided to follow them on their date before Valentine’s day. It was depressing to see Tai’s one sided love had no return but all of these changed on that faithful Valentine’s day. It was this plot twist which allowed Tai to finally made his love confession to Hsiao Chi which made the love between these 2 characters so pure and adorable. I truly enjoyed the how the male lead was able to make great use of that Valentine’s day with Hsiao Chi and probably made him the happiest man alive that day.
Overall, both characters showed me the pure and innocent side of love. Tai’s crush on Hsiao Chi and Hsiao Chi’s crush on the dance teacher made the movie very fun and interesting to watch. In addition, I’m impressed at how the director was able to change everything on Valentine’s day and build up the love between Tai and Hsiao Chi. Great job and well deserving Best Director award to Chen Yu-hsun.
Visual Effects
Being nominated for the Best Visual Effects award and to also won it definitely deserve special mention. There wasn’t a lot of CGI or special effects being used in this movie but one scene in particular definitely caught my eyes and it’s the scene where the whole world was on pause and Tai was the only one that can move around freely. This scene and other similar scenes where the world was on pause brought out the comedy in this movie and also shows how detail-oriented the visual effects team is for this movie. Most of the on pause scenes focuses on Hsiao Chi, which was a tough challenge for Patty Lee I supposed as she had to remain still like a body figurine and let Tai controls her movements. Every person who was involved in that on pause scene deserved credits for their effort in convincing the audience, including myself into believing that the whole world was on pause on Valentine’s day. Fantastic work by the Visual Effects team and congratulation once again to the Visual Effect team.
Memorable moments
This is my list of memorable moments in this movie and if your favourite scene is similar to any of the scenes listed below, please do leave a comment below and let me know.
- Exercise dance in the community (泰国虾舞）
- Whole world paused on Valentine Day
- Gecko man appearance in Hsiao Chi’s closet
- A day at the secret base
- Tai and Hsiao Chi encounter at the new postal office (Final scene)
Movie review : 10 / 10 ( Unique and creative storyline which covers the life of 2 single individuals with the intention to find a partner on Valentine’s day. Great use of the movie title to link 2 different stories together and then link them back together to form the entire story. Overall, great mix between fantasy, romance and comedy in this movie.)
Movie duration : 1 hr 59 mins
#Mymissingvalentine #Goldenhorseaward2020
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