There’s nothing very new about “Betelnut Beauty,” one of producer Peggy Chiao’s “Tales of Three Cities” series, which includes “Beijing Bicycles” (also competing in Berlin), but it’s a slickly made pic that could well attract audiences in Asia and farther afield. Film’s helmer, Lin Cheng-sheng, copped the director prize at the fest. Centering on a sweet, lively performance by Malaysian singing star Sinje (who snared the Piper Heidsieck New Talent Award) as a teenager who leaves home to sell betelnuts on the streets of Taipei, pic has a predictable arc but offers the kind of familiar, undemanding entertainment many audiences want. A solid soundtrack of songs adds to the appeal.
Fei-fei (Sinje) is a rebellious girl, frustrated with life at home with her bossy mother. When she discovers her mother has been reading her diaries, she leaves home and holes up with her slightly older friend Yili (Kelly Kuo), who works at a nightclub and whose boyfriend, Tiger (Leon Dai), is a local gang leader.
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Soon the two young women find work selling betelnuts on the streets. (The betelnut is a chewing pepper that has some of the properties of marijuana, and its sale is legal in Taiwan.) Like the other “betelnut beauties” on the street, Fei-fei and Yili dress provocatively and literally stop traffic, which eventually brings about a police crackdown.
When Fei-fei meets Feng (Chang Chen), it’s more or less love at first sight, and they move in together. Feng, who has just completed his military service, befriends Guang (Kao Ming-chun), a member of Tiger’s gang, and embarks on a fateful road to a life of crime just as Fei-fei is finding success as an actress and singer.
Commercially speaking, “Betelnut Beauty” is an advance on Lin’s previous film, “Sweet Degeneration,” and the basically familiar tale of Taipei lovers pitted against the underworld contains a few ironies, such as the fact that Fei-fei is really looking for a father figure. Pic’s souped up with lively location photography, songs by the Chairman and an appealing performance from Sinje.
Popular young actor Chang Chen, who has worked for Edward Yang and Wong Kar-wai and who has a supporting role in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” lends solid support as the boyfriend.
Dialogue is in Hokkien dialect as well as Mandarin, and the original title translates as “Love You, Love Me.” English subtitles, credited to Sam Ho, were notably poor on the print screened in Berlin, often not making sense and frequently zipping by too fast to be read.
