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Review | Tales of Taipei movie review: Sammi Cheng, Wu Bai in anthology that’s a mixed bag

Also featuring Karena Lam and Stephy Tang, Tales of Taipei doesn’t have much to do with that city nor its 10 component films with each other

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Sammi Cheng and Liu Kuan-ting in a still from Tales of Taipei (category: IIB Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Taiwanese). The anthology features 10 short films directed by Norris Wong, Remii Huang, Sinje Lee, Chong Keat Aun and others, with appearances from Wu Bai, Stephy Tang and Karena Lam.

2/5 stars

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In Tales of Taipei, 10 up and coming filmmakers direct 10 stand-alone vignettes, all set in the Taiwanese capital and tenuously woven together by a newspaper delivery driver played by rock singer Wu Bai.

The short films, which straddle comedy, romance and fantasy, feature big names such as Sammi Cheng Sau-man, Stephy Tang Lai-yan, Chang Chen and Ronald Cheng Chung-kei. But their brief appearances give them little time to shine.

While anthology films often bring together an array of talent in front of and behind the camera, they rarely make for a gratifying viewing experience.

《愛情城事 Tales of Taipei》官方主預告 Official Trailer

Like the telling of a good joke, the short films that comprise them must be executed with precision, setting up characters, situations and dramatic pay-offs in just a few minutes. Failure can make the briefest of narratives drag, or feel inconsequential.

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Tales of Taipei is a mixed bag. Hong Kong filmmaker Norris Wong Yee-lam (My Prince Edward) delivers one of the best episodes, in which Stephy Tang’s bride-to-be accompanies her future father-in-law (Tsai Chen-nan) to get his Covid-19 vaccination.
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