Rhydian Vaughan and Ariel Lin in My Egg Boy
A woman’s frozen egg cell—portrayed by a boy in a white suit with a helmet—worries that his mother will never find love, thereby never allowing him to enter the world as her child. From this wacky and scientifically-implausible premise, a surprisingly heartwarming film is born.
My Egg Boy, the latest Taiwanese film from writer-director Fu Tien-Yu which recently screened at the Reel Asian International Film Festival, is a comedic yet grounded look at an urban woman looking for love in a big city, with healthy doses of absurdism thrown in for good measure. While the film can technically be classified as a romantic comedy—the film often skews towards the quirky and zany pursuit of modern love—there is enough heartbreak and depth built into it to elevate it above that label.
The film follows Mei-pao (Ariel Lin), a woman who works for a frozen food company, that knows she will eventually want to have a baby, but realizes she is not where she wants to be in life to have one. She makes the decision to freeze her eggs so that when the right man comes around, she will still have a chance at procreation, even as she ages.
Though the story arc is reminiscent of the romantic comedies often found littered throughout contemporary cinema, My Egg Boy manages to feel different. For one, as mentioned before, the film is full of scenes depicting Mei-pao’s egg as if it were a boy—hence the film’s title—waiting for his mother to meet the right man so he came join the real world. A premise like this could seem silly in less capable hands, but thanks to Fu Tien-Yu’s directing, the subplot is given emotional weight and treated seriously, so that egg boy becomes another character in the film that we root for. Likewise, A-shi (Rhydian Vaughan) is a fantastic male lead and love-interest, and the two have incredible chemistry that makes rooting for their union nearly impossible.
The scenes that take place within the colder regions of northern Europe are ambitious to film, but they are just some of the many beautifully shot scenes that exist within the movie. Every setting is given its own unique visual style, and a distinct colour palate that suits the location or mood of the moment. The soundtrack is also the percent mix of quirky and affecting that goes well the various scenes of love, laughter, and heartbreak. All these elements come together to make the moving and personal film that is My Egg Boy, a film that is as fun to watch as its premise is absurd.
