Such a good movie yet Taiwan stupidly and perplexingly selected the entertaining but much common and much much inferior "Marry My Dead Body" (Netflix) for its Oscar entry which of course meant Taiwan was thrown out of even a nomination. How foolish!
Old Fox is a well-acted, nicely scripted drama that skilfully navigates the difficult pass between sappy melodrama and hard realism, filled with characters that are endearing, believable and relatable.
Just one essential criticism -> the last few minutes with the adult son was not only totally unnecessary, it caused the movie to veer distastefully into sappy mundanity leaving a sickly aftertaste of what could have been otherwise a pristine sparkly imprint. It's a lingering mark of doubt the director may have had in the strength of the movie that preceded, to want to add in such an amateurish appendage that could only - and did - diminish what had been built.
For some inexplicable reason, Old Fox seems to have fallen into a grey zone in the audience market despite it being a significantly better offering than 80% of what's out there.
For instance, mine is the first audience review on IMDb eventhough it's been out for a while, and I was only one of two audience in the theatre.
Go watch it. HIGHLY recommended!
