Man in Love

A-cheng collects debts for a moneylender: he breaks doors, shouts, and hits people when required. One day he goes to the house of Hao-ting, who cannot pay her father's hospital bills. He makes her a strange offer: go out with me and I will take care of the debt. She refuses, then has no choice. A-cheng buys the old man's medicine, carries him to hospital, arranges the funeral, and tells nobody. The film's problem is plain: it is built on a debt collector declaring love to his debtor and never once examines that balance of power. What works against that is the illness section in the second half; the story uses every device of melodrama openly and invites the audience in for exactly that. Yin Chen-hao directed. Roy Chiu plays A-cheng and Ann Hsu plays Hao-ting. It is an official remake of Han Dong-wook's 2014 South Korean film. The original took thirteen and a half million dollars; the Taiwanese version made close to four times that and held the top of the local box office for three weeks. Roy Chiu was named best actor at the 23rd Taipei Film Awards. Who it is for: anyone who likes Asian melodrama and love stories that play for tears. Who it is not for: anyone unable to overlook the coercion in the relationship. The film romanticises the man's behaviour and leans hard on emotional manipulation in the final section.