Cute Girl

One of the great poets of modern cinema, Hou Hsiao-hsien, made his feature debut with this sweet and lighthearted romantic comedy. Pop star Kenny Bee plays the poor city boy who, while working as an engineer in a small country town, falls in love with the daughter (singer Fong Fei-fei) of a wealthy family who is there visiting her aunt. Can their rural romance survive when they head back to the big city? Though CUTE GIRL finds Hou working in a more commercial mode than his later, more personal films, it nevertheless shows the seeds of his emerging style.