After the success of the films You Are the Apple of My Eyes and At Café 6, Liao Ming-yi has taken up the positions of director, screenwriter, cameraman and the editor of the quirky romantic film titled i WEiRDO.
i WEiRDO, to be released by mm2 Entertainment, is Asia’s first iPhone-shot film and stars two winners of the Supporting Actor and Actress of the Golden Horse Awards, Lin Bo-hong and Nikki Hsin-Ying Hsieh in leading roles.
The film adapted unconventional creativeness to convey an OCD patient’s perspective of love and has won hearts in Taiwan upon its release.
Po-Ching (Lin Bo-hong) suffers serious symptoms of mysophobia which compels him to endlessly clean every day. His quirk has isolated him from the public and he’s seen as a weirdo. Every 15th of each month, he will go out to do his usual grocery run.
As luck would have it, he bumped into another ‘weirdo’ named Chen Ching (Nikki) during his grocery run. Similarly a weirdo and an outcast like him, Chen Ching will break out in rashes if she stayed outside for more than 4 hours.
They believed it was fate that brought them together on that special day and immediately developed their spotless and perfect relationship. However, everything began to fall off-track when Po-Ching’s OCD mysteriously disappeared. With no common quirk to hold them together, will their love for each other forever hold up?
Director Liao Ming-yi explained the naming of the film title and the theme of the fim too.
“Why is it called i WEiRDO? Because I am one of them. Everyone has their own paranoid side.”
“Love is also paranoid. I want to tell the promise of love through the story. Everything is beautiful at the beginning of a relationship but what happens after the light of love wears off?” he added.
Although the film was made before the pandemic, the film was jokingly teased as the film predicting the pandemic. This was because both the main character had to keep wearing gloves and masks, washing hands and sterilizing all the time on set.
Even a fan jokingly said, “This is literally what we are all doing as a daily routine in our real life right now!”
Fans also loved the theme song of the film titled You Should Know About It which was sung by well-known ethereal Taiwanese singer, Hebe Tian.
i WEiRDO will be released in Malaysian cinemas on 17 September 2020.
