GF*BF   2012   Taiwan Girlfriend Boyfriend
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Director:Ya-che Yang
Writer:Ya-che Yang
IMDb Rating:6.7 (24 votes)
Genre:Comedy, Romance
Duration:105 min
Languages:Min Nan, Mandarin
IMDb:2319760
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Ya-che Yang  ...  (Director)
Ya-che Yang  ...  (Writer)
 
Bryan Shu-Hao Chang  ...  Sean
Hsiao-chuan Chang  ...  Liam
Gwei Lun-Mei  ...  Mabel
Rhydian Vaughan  ...  Aaron
Comments: Kind of interesting romantic entanglement against a backdrop of social unrest over the years in Taiwan. I didn't like two thirds of the casting, tho. One of the main players is a Tom Cruise look-alike who mugs so much it's creepy. Apparently he's a Taiwanese heart-throb. He acts like it. Gwei Lun-Mei needs to stop acting teen roles. She redeems herself in the third act when her character is brought closer to the age she really is, but in the first two acts, one as a teenager and then one as a college girl, she just has to ACT so much it comes off as inauthentic, coy, and icky. The third player has a Leslie Cheung thing going on and is quite good. And for my money he's the heart of the film. This is a social message Taiwanese film that tried to leap-frog integrity with star-casting. I think it would have been better served without it.

Summary: Anglo-named buddies Liam and Aaron (played by Joseph Chang, of the similarly themed Eternal Summer, and the impossibly handsome Rhydian Vaughan, who is half Welsh, respectively), are inseparable, even after hooking up with superfeisty Mabel (The Stool Pigeon’s Kwai Lun-mei), determined to defy any authority figures in her way. They’re part of a growing democratic movement, and they are also absorbed in their own problems. Aaron is way into Mabel, who suffers from stomach pains and from her inability to get Liam’s full attention. After a while, you start understanding why Liam is so preoccupied.


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