You Are The Apple Of My Eye

Giddens Ko

The story: The playful and rascally 16-year-old Ko Ching-teng (Ko Chen-tung) is made to sit in front of goody-two-shoes Shen Chia-yi (Michelle Chen) in class as punishment. To her annoyance, Chia-yi has orders from the teacher to keep an eye on him. They needle each other incessantly at first but gradually, Ching-teng begins to nurse a crush on Chia-yi.

Writer-director Giddens Ko has made a simple story of first love into a memorable work that is fresh, affecting, and often uproariously funny.

This is not one of those films about teenagers who have been scrubbed clean. The characters in Apple play dumb pranks, and driven by their hormonal urges, make stupid mistakes and swear constantly.

Actually, that is what the boys do. Ko captures beautifully the purity of youth and the poignant fact that boys are simply emotionally less mature compared to girls of the same age.

The casting is perfect with newcomer Ko Chen-tung nailing Ching-teng’s mix of impishness and idealism, swagger and shyness – an endearingly and maddeningly immature boy on the cusp of manhood.

Michelle Chen, last seen in the romantic drama Hear Me (2009), so thoroughly inhabits the role of the sweet-but-not-saintly Chia-yi that she is now seen as the ideal girlfriend by her many male fans.

The chemistry between the two leads is genuine and unforced and you soon find yourself cheering on their tentative relationship.

Since the film is based on the director’s 2007 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, one can sense the palpable affection he has for all the characters here.

The array of quirky classmates include the perpetually aroused Boner (Yen Sheng-yu), basketball-mad Lao Tsao (boyband Lollipop F’s Owodog), failed magician Liao Kai Pien (Tsai Chang-hsien) and the tubby A-ho (Steven Hao) as well as Shen’s good friend Hu Chia-wei (Wan Wan).

They could have been little more than one-note supporting players but the actors and the smartly exaggerated script manage to make each of them memorable in his own way.

The film sags somewhat in the middle after they graduate from high school and go their separate ways but it more than redeems itself with an ending that makes your heart break – and then has you guffawing heartily and leaving the theatre with a grin on your face and a spring in your step.

A real delicious Apple.

(ST)