Summary
A Korean romantic drama gets the remake treatment as a debt collector with a heart of gold abuses his position to get a date.
Han Dong-wook’s Man in Love (2014) has the kind of premise that was destined for a remake. A gangster asks the daughter of a debtor to go on dates with him until the money is paid off. Questionable power dynamics aside, in this case debut Taiwanese filmmaker Yin Chen-hao has beaten Hollywood to the punch by reworking this romantic drama in a new market.
In Yin’s MAN IN LOVE (當男人戀愛時), the gangster is A-Cheng (Roy Chiu), a local debt collector with a soft touch. His predeliction for violent solutions stops short of some of the struggling businesses that he can’t quite bring himself to shake down — much to the chagrin of his boss. Yet his only outlet for affection is a sex worker, and he leads a fairly lonely life.
When he’s sent to the hospital to collect from a terminally ill man, he meets the daughter Hao Ting (Ann Hsu). Their relationship is frosty at first, so when A-Cheng suggest that they date to pay off the debt her reaction is as acidic as you would imagine. Of course, if you’ve seen the original — or any romantic drama made since the dawn of cinema — then you’ll know that true love is only a few micro crises away.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. The entire premise of the film is based on an abuse of power, placing any romantic developments in the shadow of Stockholm Syndrome. Time and inevitability are the only real ingredients in this love story, which necessitates the development of a terminal illness to give this narrative any sense of urgency or dramatic tension.
Thankfully, there’s a couple of characters that you really don’t mind spending some time with. Roy Chiu, seen recently in a supporting role for Detective Chinatown 3, is a slightly more complex performance than one would expect for this role. Carrying the lion’s share of the dramatic moments, he swings from violent enforcer to tender romantic and fragile in the final moments. Similarly, Hsu comes off the back of The Tag Along series for a romantic outing.
If you can make it through the super dramatic third act, which includes a montage of self-loathing and a fatal diagnosis, then you can weather the emotion without too many sniffles. You know exactly where it’s going but find yourselves sucked in regardless. MAN IN LOVE is a solid remake, and you can rest assured it won’t be the last time we see this story.
2021 | Taiwan | DIRECTORS: Yin Chen-hao | WRITER: Fu Kai-ling, Chien Chieh-chung | CAST: Roy Chiu, Ann Hsu, Tsai Chen-nan | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix, Taiwan Film Festival in Australia 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 September – 30 September 2021 (TWFF 2021)
