Asian Movie Review: GF*BF (女朋友。男朋友 ,2012)

Last night I caught the premiere of "GF*BF" at the opening for the  Summer edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.    In attendance were the three leads from the flm and the director Yang Yache -

Yes, that's Rhydian Vaughn, aka the half-guy western guy from Monga along with Joseph Chang and Gwei Lun-mei.

Let me share a quick review -    Its your typical 'life journey' type story of three friends from their high school years into adulthood over the context of a love triangle between the three of them.   The time period is from the waning days of Taiwan's Martial Law period in the 1980s to the student protests of the early 90s to the 'Asian tiger' boom days of the later 90s to today.   

I'm not the biggest expert on 80's and 90's Taiwan but I'm not sure how true to life the depictions were or if it was more of an idealized, overly retro version of everything...   but I suppose that could be on purpose, just as the characters lives are simple and carefree compared to the complications that arise as they get older.

Each period in the film tends to end with a bit of a cliff hanger and then when it jumps to the next period of time you spend a lot of mental energy trying to fill in the blanks from what just ended to where they are in the new period....  sometimes it makes sense and other times you're just kind of scratching your head.   And even within the time periods there's a few random jumps in the narrative (and of logic) that don't make sense...

A bit overly melodramatic at times, but the performances are solid.  Caveat -  the leads who are all 25+ have trouble convincing anyone they're the same age as the other actors in the high school scenes.    :-P

If you're into Taiwan film,  probably worth checking out.  Not 100% my cup of tea, but I'll still give it a 7/10.