As with many Taiwanese directors, the path to the first feature starts with years of learning, at film school as well as on set, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien's career is certainly no exception. Having spent years training with cinematographer and director Lai Chengying, Hou established a reputation for himself, qualifying him to helm “Cute Girl”, a feature which would star the heavily popular singer Kenny Bee in one of his first roles as an actor, in a year that saw him act in many other productions. “Cute Girl” also marked the beginning of a fruitful work relationship with Hou as they would also collaborate on “Cheerful Wind” and “The Green Green Grass of Home”, which was released only two years after.
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Although she has made a successful career and is quite well-educated, Wenwen (Feng Feifei) is still single, which is no problem for her, but quite a disaster for her family, especially her father. Dissatisfied with what he perceives as an immature lifestyle, he and his wife have been looking for quite some time, trying to find a suitable husband for their daughter. However, before she decides on the matter, Wenwen insists on visiting her aunt in the countryside, hopefully to make her father understand she does not want to have an arranged marriage. During her stay, she meets Daigang (Kenny Bee), an engineer, who has been sent to the rural village by his employer to plan the building of a new highway.
Eventually, the two fall for each other and spent some time together, with Wenwen's aunt urging her niece to tell her parents about her feelings for Daigang. In the end, she goes back to Taipei, where she meets her future husband, a son from a wealthy family, who has been studying in France for the past years. While their first dates are defined by their distance from each other, Wenwen eventually begins to like the young man and questions her feelings for Daigang, who, in return, tries to thwart any kind of intimacy between his love and his rival.
Many times Hou Hsiao-Hsien has stated that his career truly began with “The Boys from Fengkui” (1983), a feature which won many awards at Nantes Three Continents Festival and the 1984 Golden Horse Film Festival, marking his direction towards international audiences. In the context of the development of his directing style and the themes, which would define his body of work, “Cute Girl” is nevertheless an interesting first feature. On the one hand, there is no denying we are dealing with a work which seems to be a vehicle for the two main actors, both of which successful pop stars at the time of production, to venture further into the film industry. Given the sheer number of musical scenes combined with the sugary main theme “Cute Girl”, any viewer will have difficulty distinguishing Hou's first feature from the kind of rom-com Hollywood has become renowned for internationally.
On the other hand, you should not ignore the importance of “Cute Girl” when it comes to introducing audiences to the kind of approach, thematically and aesthetically, that Hou would develop further in his next projects. As author Philip Kemp rightfully points out in his essay on the filmmaker's early works, concepts such as the contrast between rural and urban Taiwan or traditional family values, represented by Wenwen's parents, are present throughout “Cute Girl”, even though they are more in the background it seems. At the same time, the combination of pop songs and the often corny scenes between the protagonists, especially the first concept is often on the verge of being romanticized.
In the roles of Wenwen and Daigang, Kenny Bee and Feng Feifei are most convincing when delivering the musical or romantic scenes in “Cute Girl”. As with many features of the genre, you should not expect too much depth in their performances, especially when it comes to the emotional turmoil resulting from aspects such as the argument with Wenwen's father, for example.
In conclusion, “Cute Girl” is a romantic comedy, with many musical scenes. While the feature certainly does it best to entertain, in the context of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's career it is perhaps most interesting as a first step in developing themes and skills for the director.
