Ko Shu-Chin

A family of four fractures under the weight of unmet expectations, unexpected tragedy, and uncompromising pride.

A film about the tormenting presence of absence. A young shop girl named Xiao Mei suddenly vanishes from her usual existence, without explanation or trace. Has she dissolved, or perhaps redeemed herself somehow? Nine people from her immediate surroundings try to fill the empty space left behind by this supposedly insignificant young woman. In a kaleidoscope of meandering memories, projections, confessions, interpretations, incantations and helpless speculations through which the young escapee wanders aimlessly, they attempt to solve the mystery of her disappearance.

The story revolves around a blind music student who excels at piano but faces hardships due to his disability, and an aspiring dancer who works at a bubble tea store. Their friendship becomes mutually uplifting as they pursue their dreams.

30-year-old Ying-Juan, who weights up to 105 kg, works at her mother’s childcare centre and has a hard time until she meets Wu, a deliveryman who bears a checkered past underneath his radiant smile. Encouraged by Wu, Ying-Juan finally decides to lose weight. Just when things are getting on the right track, devastatingly, Ying-Juan’s passion for cooking seems to be fading due to her over-aggressive diet.

Johnny is a 25-year-old man, filled with sexual desire, who longs to have a real relationship with a woman. Every time he sees an attractive woman, he gets a nosebleed. His long-suffering mother Meng Jie is worried that his lust will get the better of him, and that he will end up getting a woman pregnant. But his life is changed on the day he decides to seek out baking lessons from Mary, a baking teacher who is 15 years older than him – and also happens to be a friend of his mother. Mary is wary of Johnny’s affections, and thinks that a relationship between them would be totally inappropriate. But Cupid has other plans for them. Eventually, she finds that fighting her feelings is a fruitless struggle – and finds herself seriously beginning a romance with the younger man. But things take a turn when Johnny must go abroad to Italy to study. And then the situation gets extremely awkward when Johnny’s stunned mother learns of Mary’s love for her son.

This is a story of two girls whose lives for 16 to 30 intertwined. With flashbacks, they went through the maze of memories and the fog of emotions and realized the moving power of sincerity in depressions and sufferings. Father and daughter, female bonds, straight and homosexual romances are all in this profound story of life.