Belying the title, When a Wolf Falls in Love with a Sheep is an amiable if lightweight tale of two lost souls whose paths cross in Taipei. Shot with a flair that elevates the material above the humdrum, it’s the second feature from Taiwanese writer-director Hou Chi-Jan following his 2010 debut One Day.
Hou extracts polished and convincing performances from the three appealing leads
Although it’s set largely in and around a 'cram school" in bustling Nanyang Street, the movie doesn’t provide much of a commentary on the pressures and challenges facing contemporary Taiwanese youth.
Rather, it’s a straight forward although imaginatively-mounted chronicle of two young people who are on the rebound from failed relationships and treading warily in their dealings with the opposite sex.
The script won first prize at the first Filming Taipei Screenwriting Contest organised by the Taipei Film Commission, which financially supported the production.
Given the inexperienced cast, Hou extracts polished and convincing performances from the three appealing leads. Ko Chen-Tung, who was named best new performer at the 2011 Golden Horse Awards for his role in You Are the Apple of My Eye, plays Tung, a hard-working clerk in a photocopying shop near the cram school.
In the opening scene he awakes to find his girlfriend has vanished, leaving a post-it note on his forehead which reads, 'I’m off to cram school." She never returns, which explains his mostly melancholy mood and his frequent daydreams about her.
Tung’s luck seems to change when he meets Yang (Jian Man-Shu), an eccentric, extroverted cram school student. Her name means 'sheep,’ a recurring motif as Yang is a budding illustrator who draws a sheep on the test papers and sketches a wolf in other cartoons.
Yang also laments the loss of a boyfriend but takes a far more philosophical to life than Tung; indeed her approach can be summarised by her predilection to make a wish then count to 100, and thereafter accept whatever will be will be.
Their romance develops slowly, not least because Tung is pining after his departed girlfriend and Yang is not one given to automatically following her instincts.
Newcomer Kuo Shu-Yao shines as an ambitious, career-driven saleswoman, and Tsai Chen-Nan is amusing as Tung’s opportunistic and demanding boss.
The tone is mostly frothy and lighthearted, except for a few exchanges between the pair when they ruminate on the future, one incident when Yang was a child, and her momentary frustration when her illustrations are rejected by a publisher.
Ko is a good looking, charming lad and he displays a winning chemistry with the perky Jian, who makes an impressive film debut after starring in the Taiwanese TV show Office Girls. Jian has the sort of expressive, open face the camera loves and a radiant presence.
Hou evidently based his script on the people he met when he spent a year in a cram school in Nanyang Street. He uses witty animation, slo-mo, fast motion and inventive camera angles to give a fairly conventional story a wryly quirky and distinctive flavour.
