Cover of stills from the movie Blowfish
Xiao Zun (Pan Zhimin) works as an elevator lady in a high-end department store in the city, and her personality is introverted, obedient, and does not like to argue with people. She lived a mundane life with her lazy boyfriend (Wu Hong) in a constant job until her boyfriend caught a pufferfish until her boyfriend split his legs.
Xiao Zun decided to find a better home for the pufferfish, so she hung the puffer fish on the net, hoping to find a good owner. When she comes to the countryside to make friends, she meets the buyer of the pufferfish (Wu Kangren), a scruffy and taciturn man who plays the coach of the elementary school baseball team in the play, and is only called the coach in the play, not his real name.
Stills from the movie Blowfish
Xiao Zun found that he did not know anything about the puffer fish, and thought of staying until the puffer fish was placed and then left with confidence, and this stay was three months. During this period, Xiao Zun and the coach live together, they have a relationship, Xiao Zun plays his departed wife Liu Hua (Yao Anqi), and the two begin a journey of self-discovery and mutual discovery.
Taiwanese director Lee Kai-yuen is not a prolific director, making only five films in 13 years — but he's known for his willingness to try new things. The most striking thing about Blowfish is that it feels less like a Taiwanese film than a Japanese drama, with tepid rhythms, sparse dialogue, a long soundtrack, and a lot of symbolism and ambiguity. So, if you're expecting machine-gun-style conversations, it might be a nice surprise.
The film opens with a sense of irony, where we see all the department store employees shouting the same slogans and doing the same morning exercises on each floor of the building, which is a rather interesting sight. The elevator staff would then recite their rules of work – never show their gums when smiling, and only 7 teeth could be seen at any one time. This made Xiao Zun show her usually trained smile when she bumped into her boyfriend's leg split, just like she had become a practical robot.
When Xiao Zun and the coach suddenly collided in front of the pufferfish, they hardly had any communication, and the atmosphere became a little strange. In addition to their love of fish, they seem to have some serious emotional trauma that this unusual combination is eroding those traumas and opening the door to a brighter future.
When the coach went out to work, Xiao Zun found a room full of brightly colored clothes, which was the first stage of Xiao Zun's change. Xiao Zun quietly enters the role of Liu Hua, who is his wife who has left him, and the reason why the coach is afraid of what has happened and may repeat the same mistakes.
Maybe it's not a traditional form of therapy, if it's a treatment, but it seems to have a miracle effect on both, and the film also raises some moral questions, and if you want to understand it at a deeper level, there are also existential problems. When they fulfill their desired role responsibilities while pretending to be the person you miss, does it matter who the other half of your life is? If it gives you access to the thrills you lack in life, is it okay to pretend to be someone else? What happens when you fall in love? Which one are you in love with?
The clear answer is no, because this is not a daily love story that can be expected. But what the director has done is for us to see how the relationship unfolds and how it can bring positive change to both injured parties without any obvious collateral damage, until the final scene, which is the only place where the film is truly dramatic. It may seem a little late, but in fact, it's the perfect exclamation point for the whole deep allegorical story.
At the same time, we can find in the film that this is Xiao Zun's first real happiness, which is an open explanation, perhaps because she got rid of the dull lifestyle of daily work, or perhaps Liuhua's life stimulated herself, this "role play" made her escape from her original life. A secondary factor in this more active life is the blind neighbor XiaoJinyu (Lu Yijing), who mistakes Xiao Zun for liuhua who teaches her tap dance.
A man who barely spoke, the coach seemed to accept this setting without complaint, and chose some clothes for Xiao Zun to wear before some warmth. This can't help but make us guess whether this person is happy to have an alternative bedmate, or whether he can continue to let himself have the idea of loving again and continuing, Xiao Zun acts as a departing six flowers, a bit of AB option.
Although the cast is not very well-known, the film really belongs to the novice actor and director Lee Kai-won, and it is also co-written by them. Similar to Tang Wei, but not as controversial as Tang Wei, Pan Zhimin's debut style is bold, nakedly showing some sexual images (but not explicitly), while showing a primitive and profound understanding of how to create a character with real emotions. To us, Xiao Zun's behavior seems unreasonable and abnormal, but Pan Zhimin makes her feel real and understandable. She may not be charming in the traditional sense, but she is quite photogenic and has successfully created a very three-dimensional, existential image.
Admittedly, it will take a while for the audience to get into the best state created by director Lee Kai-yuen and uncover the secrets hidden in the depths. Along with Pan Zhimin's performance, from the aforementioned morning exercise scene to the puffer fish being purchased, the gorgeous photography is particularly prominent, the rural scenery is beautiful, and the way the vibrant clothes of Liuhua are placed around the room is also very artistic.
The title may sound a little strange, but Blowfish reveals a lot more than it actually offers, more than it should. It may be a silent and minimalist approach, but this deceptive film takes a unique look at an interesting ancient thing that we call love through the wonderful performances of the newcomer actors.