Menina Bonita (1981)

"Don't ask for more"

Cute Girl aka Lovable You was Hou Hsiao Hsien’s directorial debut. Fans of his may be able to spot his tells, but this seemed worlds away from “A Time to Live, A Time to Die” or “Daughter of the Nile”. This was a plain vanilla romcom if you removed all the vanilla.

Pan Wen Qi’s wealthy father is arranging a marriage for her to the son of another wealthy family. Wen decides to take a break and spend time with her aunt in the countryside. As luck would have it, Gu Da Gang is surveying the town for a highway that is going to be built. “Hilarious” interactions between the villagers and Da Gang draw the two together. But sadly, this love could never be, because Wen’s father would never approve of a poor engineer. Wen returns home without saying good-bye to the man she has happily spent the past few days with. That doesn’t stop Da Gang from stalking her, I mean searching for her to declare himself.

Romcoms often rely on cheesy situations and misunderstandings, how the tropes are implemented is what matters. Cute Girl was built on cute people who did supposedly cute things. The characters had no depth and Wen’s most emotional outburst was when Da Gang and her blind date became friends. The cringe factor was high in this film, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the characters caused me to care whether they got to together or not. The theme song was played at least six times and for the most part this was a music video with a little story to it. It was truly one of the blandest films I’ve ever watched. At ninety minutes, it felt much longer.

3 May 2025
Trigger warning: A cobra was shown being butchered

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