Touch

Objectively, Touch is not a particularly strong movie. There’s a lot of cliche and a lot of filler. But it is also extremely cute. I do not recommend paying full attention and taking notes on the film. But if you need something cute to spend less than 50% of your brain power on, Touch might be the movie for you.

Touch follows three friends who embark on a road trip. This comes about following Zi Quing being hospitalized and diagnosed with Lupus. She has a strong desire to travel to the coast and watch the sunrise. Her friends, Jian Fei and Xu Nian buy an old van to help her achieve this goal. Jian Fei is a tomboy and clearly has deep feelings for Zi Quing. There’s also Xu Nian, an influence and an obnoxious third wheel. Together, the three set out on an adventure to the coast where Zi Quing and Jian Fei will finally confront their feelings for one another.

Touch is a mixture of romantic comedy and soap opera. It pings between cutesy romantic moments, juvenile slapstick comedy and overwrought melodrama. The latter two genres make up more of the run time that I would’ve liked. The comedy lacks any sort of novelty. It’s standard characters, situations and even sound effects you would expect from a generic comedy. The melodrama always feels like it comes out of nowhere. One scene is the three friends being cute. Then, their car breaks down and suddenly Zi Quing is sobbing about how nobody will ever love her because of her Lupus. After this, it’s back to comedic filler. Or, maybe a montage of scenes we’ve already seen. It’s not that Touch doesn’t have enough plot to fill a movie, they just don’t seem to want dig deep enough to find it.

But honestly, all I wanted to see was Zi Quing and Jian Fei being cute. And the moments they get are absolutely adorable. They care so much about each other. Jian Fei is a whole other level of butch dreamboat. The montage of her fixing a car with an artistic grease stain on her cheek? Powerful stuff. Jian Fei is so relentlessly sweet to Zi Quing. She seems to genuinely adore caring for her. Jian Fei also doesn’t shy away from her feelings. She overtly tells Zi Quing multiple times that she likes her romantically. Really, the only reason they’re not together earlier is that they share the same love of drama. These women know the power of a well-timed love confession or kiss and they’re waiting for that moment to solidify their already basically romantic relationship.

What’s notable about Touch is that it’s from mainland China. The only other Chinese WLW film I’ve seen is 2001’s Fish and Elephant. That film painted a fairly bleak, deeply closeted portrait of life for lesbians in China. Touch, by contrast, has none of these elements. And this seems like an intentional choice. There’s no angst about Zi Quing and Jian Fei’s sexual identity. Jian Fei seems to live openly as someone gender non-conforming. The only time sexual oppression is brought up is when Zi Quing pretends to be the girlfriend of a gay man. But this too is played for laughs. Zi Quing has far more angst relating to her Lupus diagnosis than anything else. This is a welcome surprise from a country with notable restrictions on queer sexuality in their movies. Touch might be something of a fantasy, but it’s a necessary, hopeful one.

Touch is a fluffy, sugary dessert of a movie. It lacks any real nutritional value and has quite a lot of filler. But it’s also very sweet and hopeful. The film gives us a tomboy dreamboat, a romance with little societal oppression and zero dead gay people. It also features one of the most obnoxious third wheels in cinematic history. If you want a cute WLW film, Touch is a great choice. But only if you’re not paying full attention to it. The film’s story is a bit too stuck in cliche and episodic comedy skits to be considered objectively good.

Overall rating: 5.6/10

Other WLW films in similar genres