Five Blind Dates review

Rom coms don’t need to be as hard as Five Blind Dates would lead viewers to believe. Lifetime and Hallmark regularly churn out feel good movies seemingly every week. What they lack in originality, they thrive in simply delivering what viewers expect.

Coming up with a strong premise is the one aspect of Five Blind Dates that wasn’t a problem. It’s everything else that constantly crumbles like playing Jenga in the middle of an earthquake. The foundation is shaky making for a frustrating viewing experience.

Co-writer Shuang Hu stars as Lia, a young woman following her dream of operating a tea shop in her grandmother’s honor. Business isn’t exactly booming and she’s starting to get eviction notices. Some of that is due to Lia not providing Boba tea, which several potential customers request. Lia would rather her patrons enjoy a more refined teamaking process. Apparently at the expense of keeping the lights on. Grandmother probably wouldn’t be thrilled with Lia’s business acumen.

At her sister, Alice’s (Tiffany Wong) engagement party, a fortune teller tips Lia that she’ll meet her soulmate. The catch is she has to do it within five dates and before the end of the wedding. Even better, this new flame will lead to major prosperity for her business.

Clearly, this soulmate is her childhood BFF Richard (Yoson An, Plane), but for the sake of running through rom com cliches, Lia must remain oblivious until the final act.

This delay allows her mother, Jing (Renee Lim); father, Xian (Tzi Ma, The Farewell) and Alice to set Lia up with their prospective candidates. Xian mentions a bet, which seems like it could have been a fun way to take the concept. The three family members make it a competition by trying to be the one with the “winning” blind date. Meanwhile, Lia she tries to make sense of what she wants personally and professionally.

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The problems are numerous. Lia isn’t driven to find love — she’s doing the dates to keep her business going. She doesn’t have this head in the clouds mentality about finding someone to spend the rest of her life with and puts out very little effort. This makes it tough to root for Lia to find a love connection.

Lia is also needlessly harsh to Richard and her family. They clearly mean well and aren’t obnoxious enough to justify Lia’s treatment.

Hu and co-writer Nathan Ramos-Park place the comedic burden of this rom com largely on Lia’s business partner/requisite gay pal Mason (Ilai Swindells). Only problem is Mason isn’t very funny — just very gay. At this point with rom coms, the woman is expected to have a gay BFF. There’s nothing revelatory or interesting about Mason providing sassy advice and chasing after and landing any dude. Maybe Lia should just have him set her up?

Director Shawn Seet isn’t afraid to go for some slapstick moments, which come off too melodramatic, hokey and unbelievable. Even by the most generous rom com standards.

Hu shows clear lead potential and would easily shine given better material. Ironically, Hu the screenwriter significantly holds Hu the actress back.

Five Blind Dates warrants a full swipe left. It completely whiffs on its potential and fails to deliver much by way of comedy or an engaging romance.

Rating: 3 out of 10

Photo Credit: Amazon