“The My Missing Valentine” A puzzle called a story formed by emotional pieces

Synopsis of "My Missing Valentine"

Xiaoqi, who works at the post office, is a woman in her 30s who is not doing well in either her work or her love life. She is always one step ahead in everything she does, always closing her eyes when taking pictures, and laughing at movies earlier than most people. One day, she makes a date with a handsome dance instructor on Valentine's Day, but when she wakes up, it's the next day for some reason. Valentine's Day has disappeared...!? Xiaoqi begins to search for the whereabouts of the missing day. A photo of herself that she doesn't recognize, a key to a post office box with "038" written on it, memories of her missing father... the mystery only deepens. It seems that Guatai, the bus driver who comes to the post office every day and is one step behind other people, also holds a clue. But he has a big "secret" - What is the unexpected "important thing" that Xiaoqi receives on her journey to find the "one day" she lost...!?

Index

• Memory Puzzle
• Time Puzzle
• Puzzle of the moment

Memory Puzzle

Director Chen Yu-shun's new film, "A My Missing Valentine" (20), is a gem dedicated to all the love that happened too soon, all the love that didn't come in time. It is this year's Romantic Grand Prize winner. A love where you blame your own immaturity. Or a love where you didn't have the courage to take a decisive step. A love between two people that didn't work out because the timing was missed, where there was just a slight overlap of emotions. And the sadness that was left behind somewhere...

"The My Missing Valentine" weaves together fragments of such possible love stories and left-behind stories, like putting together a puzzle of memories.

"Sometimes memories that are important to you may be meaningless to the other person. I hope that the memories that are important to each of us will be engraved in our hearts."

The pieces of memory that form the puzzle are also pieces of emotion. How did I feel when I looked at the other person at that time? How did the other person feel when they looked at me? The distance between the lovers in each episode and the misunderstanding of emotions at the time. In this work, the receptionist at the post office where the heroine works breaks the "puzzle of the two people" apart with comical cruelty. The pieces of memory that have once been torn apart eventually turn into pieces of emotion that form the puzzle of the story.

"My Missing Valentine" Trailer

In terms of Chen Yu-shun's work, it is similar to the way the characters in " Love Go Go " (1997) are connected by chance encounters. The dramatic and unconventional methods that the characters in "Love Go Go" take to convey their feelings to each other are successful in capturing their hardships and awkwardness in life as the lovable sparkle of life.

Come to think of it, the characters in Cheng Yu-Hsun's works have always acted haphazardly, without even the slightest bit of planning. In " Tropical Fish " (1995), there is the lovable kidnapper's family who leak all their information to the police. In " Chef Feast " (2013), there is the idol-like aspiring model who is chased by debt collectors and has poor cooking skills. And then there is the heroine in this film, who is always one step ahead of the others and thus keeps missing out on things.

Chen Yu-shun, who originally aspired to make melancholic films as a student, spoke about the "shift" in his style as follows:

"I didn't want to depress the audience with a tragic story, so I turned to comedy to tell a tragic story with humor."

Time Puzzle