Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Love in Taipei’ on Paramount+, a Flimsy Rom-Com About a Young Woman Sowing an Oat or Two in Taiwan

Feel free to file Love in Taipei (now on Netflix) under Age, Coming Of. Up-and-comer Ashley Liao (of Apple TV+’s Physical and the upcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) plays a Taiwanese-American med student who travels to Taipei for a cultural immersion program but finds herself finding herself more than anything else. The film adapts Abigail Hing Wen’s bestselling YA novel Loveboat, Taipei (note: shoulda kept that title for the movie) and also reportedly sanitizes it, scrubbing out the sexier bits for a more PG-13 tameness. It should still have plenty of appeal to audiences who enjoy tepid love triangles set against postcard-photography backdrops and montages set to drippy pop songs – you know, all the stuff of formulaic teen-ish romances, which makes the movie little more than an Asian-culture variation of the same old thing.

LOVE IN TAIPEI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Ever Wong (Liao) narrates. She’s the daughter of Taiwanese parents who immigrated to the bland, and very very White, city of Chagrin Halls, Ohio while she was still in the womb. She’s 21, and still following the plan her mom and dad mapped out for her: She just finished college, and the next stop is med school; she’ll be a doctor like her father was before they moved to the U.S., where he settled on being a pharmacist. That catches her up to the present day, where she’ll spend eight weeks in Taipei with other young adults of her ilk, learning all about their Taiwanese heritage, from calligraphy to language and traditional medicine. She’s on the bus to the fancy-ass facility, wearing a worried expression. Her quiet, bookish sweetness stands in contrast to the more outgoing types surrounding her. Will she fit in? Oh, and will she also be able to carve out time to rehearse a routine for an audition for a dance academy, because she wants to be a dancer instead of a doctor, a fact that she has yet to tell her parents since the thought of upsetting them and not getting their approval has her quaking in her boots?

This is when she meets Sophie (Chelsea Zhang), a gregarious social butterfly who introduces herself: “I’m Sophie Ha, like haha!” In so many words, Sophie tells Ever to loosen up because the program is informally called “Loveboat” because more than anything else, the program is eight weeks of hardy partying with hunky slabs of male flesh. And this is where we need to talk about a key slab, Sophie’s cousin, Rick Woo (Ross Butler), like woo woo hubba hubba mraowww yeow tssss ow hot hot hot. He’s the poster child for Asian-American excellence, a football player studying finance whose ritzy pedigree results in his chiseled features being prominently displayed on magazine covers. (Hey, remember magazines?) Ever has long been aware of him, and has long referred to him as Boy Wonder. She hates him – until she sees him in person, at which point she emits many a hormone and realizes, you know, maybe he’s not so bad after all. 

But. There’s this other kid named Xavier (Nico Hiraga). He’s more loosey-goosey than your typical Loveboat academician, a relative rebel who marches to his own beat and all that. She dances on the roof of the school and doesn’t realize he’s up there too. He compliments her and she blushes. He calls her Forever Ever. Aww. Sophie inevitably lures Ever out of her shell and before you know it, they’re out at all hours hitting the clubs, and Ever finds herself in the middle of an Incredibly Cute Date with Boy Wonder. Ever also connects with her Auntie Shu (Cindy Cheung), a free spirit who’s spent her life traveling and making art, and now owns an art co-op in Taipei; Shu gives Ever gallery space to practice her dance routine, and plenty of encouragement to maybe rebel against her parents’ wishes and follow her own. Is it me, or is Ever coming of age super hard right now?  

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Love in Taipei drafts Butler (and a slew of producers) from the To All the Boys movies, and is very similar in its lighthearted tone.

Performance Worth Watching: Liao seems to have all the tools one needs to headline a feature-length film, but this one doesn’t ask her to do much heavy lifting. Her character is flimsy and often indistinguishable from many others like it, and she’s asked to beam her winning smile so frequently, it begins to lose its potency.  

Memorable Dialogue: Shu talks to Ever about the collision between her parents and her hopes and dreams:

Ever: They’d be heartbroken if I throw it all away to dance.

Shu: What about your heart?

Sex and Skin: Just some smooching.

Our Take: Warning: Love in Taipei’s Triteness Levels are high as it leans less into the specificities of the Asian-American experience and more into the generica of coming-of-age romantic dramedies. We spend 90-odd minutes hanging out with a lot of almost-airheads who are too close to being boilerplate movie-character types for comfort, while our protagonist is more of a borderline-passive collection of traits than something resembling a real person. 

The movie sure looks pretty though, with its romanticized Taipei cityscapes filling the screen, and the cast munching succulent regional foods while wearing the most fab selections from the wardrobe closet. But the film is otherwise technically bumpy, with choppy edits and transitions and a reliance on montages over, you know, actual storytelling. Stilted dialogue during the heavier dramatic moments – director Arvin Chen is more adept at handling featherweight comedy – adds to the chintzy veneer.

Love in Taipei’s lack of substance renders its appeal superficial. It nods knowingly at the family pressures and other stress points of Ever’s life as the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, but ultimately commits itself to fluff: Tame “rebellious” nighttime shenanigans, love triangles and myriad cliches about following the creative impulses of the heart over conservative pragmatism. The movie’s cute, but it’s never more than that. 

Our Call: Love in Taipei will make audiences under 15 cringe. It’ll also make those 20 – no, make that 18 – and older cringe. It has limited appeal, is what I’m saying. So if you don’t fall into that narrow category, I suggest you SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.