Café. Waiting. Love

Based on one of the most beloved novels from writer-filmmaker Giddens, Café. Waiting. Love possesses the same endearing quirkiness and attention to romantic minutiae that made Giddens’ You Are the Apple of My Eye such a popular hit. Directed by Chiang Jin-lin, the film stars Vivian Sung as Siying, a brassy college girl who’s nearly hit by a bus but is saved by the handsome and angelic Zeyu (Marcus Chang). Infatuated, Siying follows Zeyu to Café. Waiting. Love, a coffee bar whose owner (Vivian Chow) is mysteriously melancholy. Siying instantly gets a job at the café, where she works beneath butch barista Abusi (Megan Lai) and can watch over Zeyu to her heart’s content.

Siying also meets cheerful student A-Tou (Bruce), who’s infamous for always wearing a bikini and roller skates in public, and for dragging a cabbage around town by a leash. Questionable hobbies aside, the two become friends, and an attraction begins to grow. For Siying, the feeling is more about the slow realisation that A-Tou is a super-excellent guy, but for A-Tou the attraction is related to his late grandfather’s prophecy about how one day A-Tou would meet his destined love and that she’d have the magical ability to produce sausages from thin air. Siying can actually do this – a ridiculous plot device but also an adorably quirky one that fits the magical tone crafted by Giddens and company.

The character interplay works well on its own. Despite being introduced with perverse habits, A-Tou is stand-up boyfriend material and Siying is a romantic heroine with vivid, engaging appeal. Both are idealised characters straight out of a Japanese girls manga, but Bruce and Vivian Sung are fresh, interesting faces and their romance lacks pretension despite its pandering details. Some of the side characters are also quite fun; A-Tou and Siying are aided and abetted by former actor Brother Bao (Li Lou), who’s had a longstanding row with his wife Jindao (Paulien Lang), and laments it by watching his old melodramatic gangster films and crying in self-deprecating bro fashion. Megan Lai is striking as barista Abusi, and gives the film far more presence than her meagre screen time should allow, while Hong Kong singer-actress Vivian Chow is ethereal as the mysterious café owner.

Café. Waiting. Love ultimately uses its fantastic elements to tell a familiar romantic story, and some explanatory flashback sequences raise the level of melodrama alarmingly. Still, the film is exceptionally well made, with photogenic stars, genial humour and an attractive vision of Taiwan that could be described as a hipster-yuppie paradise complete with tantalising upscale coffee culture. The sum total is entertaining and undeniably pleasing, and qualifies as a prime example of an airy Taiwan postmodern romance – a type of film that’s become its own popular genre alongside Giddens’ other comedies and their mix of attractive stars, endearing emotions and other cute accoutrements. This genre has a dedicated audience both in Taiwan and abroad, and Café. Waiting. Love serves them earnestly.