Dr Du is a Taiwanese eye doctor who takes out a personal ad to hopefully meet a future husband.We share Du's journey as she meets an assortment of would be suitors. Some can be funny-a salesman who meets up with her because he wants to sell her self defense items, including one that shoots dye in a hilarious scene. Some are weird-a shoe fetishist just wants her to try on shoes for him. Some are sleazy-a pimp merely wants her to be part of his prostitution ring. Some are sad-a mother brings her sheltered son because he cannot cope with the outside world.Dr Du is lonely and looking for love due to a broken romance with a married man. She is only able to reveal her true feelings by leaving messages on his answering machine, though they go unanswered.This is a sometimes heart breaking film, though well worth seeking out if you are looking for something realistic and raw in emotion. Rene Liu is excellent in the lead, her big expressive eyes and shy, awkward smile tell the whole story. A little seen film that deserves to be sought out.

When you compare the gulf that exists between the wretched quality of acting in the bulk of Taiwan's television dramas and that in the high proportion (but small number overall) of excellent films, you have to wonder whether there are two different worlds in this small country. "The Personals" is an example of the latter to treasure. Rene Liu is captivating in a quiet sort of way as a professional woman struggling with her well-concealed demons and subjecting herself to an endless round of meetings with various suitors. The acting is so natural and attractive that one almost feels like an eavesdropper at the table in the tea shop, but a welcome one. The overall emphasis is wry comedy, but as with so many Taiwanese films that get foreign release, there is a drifting air of sadness and dislocation. This might be partly due to the fact that the bulk of Taiwan's foreign-screened films are obsessed with the fortunes and neuroses of the "mainlander" minority in Taipei (Eat Drink Man Woman is thus far the pinnacle of this syndrome). Many "mainlanders", even their Taiwan-born children, retain an equivocal attitude toward Taiwan as a home outside of the sphere of greater China and from this I suspect comes that sadness and dislocation. Yet pro-Taiwan independence zealots might even read into this film a more troubling interpretation: Rene Liu is smart, attractive, sassy, engaging - thoroughly modern - but is stung by prior romances, and unable to find a partner in anyone, yet is desperate for affirmation and companionship.Ethnic interpretations aside, the film could have been an ugly disaster by mocking the men (and one woman) who would be her companion. Instead we get a lovely selection of real people, complex and banal, kooky and elegant. But never dull. If you walk down a Taipei street, these are the people you will meet.The writer and director deserve the highest accolades for this effort. It's one of the best contemporary Taiwanese films out there.

A single professional woman in Taipei age about 30 (Rene Liu) has placed an ad searching for a husband. The movie is mostly her interviews with the suitors, though her painful past and present emerge gradually when she talks with a professor and leaves messages on her former lovers answering machine and as well as a few flashbacks.Best are the scenes with the mostly weird men who answered the ad.

When I saw the movie at the Ghent Film Festival, I didn't know what to expect. The only thing I knew was that it was going to be the story of a woman who wants to get married and hopes to find the ideal man through a personal ad. A lot of time is spent on her sitting in a bar and talking to the men who answered the ad. This way the film wants to give us an idea of what life is like in Taiwan. Though this promises to be either very interesting or very boring, the result is that you are watching a film which can somehow move you, but at the same time you regret that it isn't more than only slightly moving. As the story continues and we meet weirdo after weirdo (a lot of these men are fun to watch), we learn that she once had a lover who abandoned her to return to hi wife. There is a lot more to the story, but I wouldn't like to spoil the ending. She regularly phones her ex-lover to tell him how much she misses him and how none of the men can compare to him, but he is never home so she tells her story to his answering machine. This second story is more intriguing than the first and it's a pity that the story can't fully grip you. But still, the movie is interesting and well worth its 7/10.