L'été de mes 17 ans

FORMULA 17 (17 Sui De Tian Kong)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

Events conspire to frustrate the budding romance between a naive country boy (Tony Yang) searching for love in Taipei, and a local stud (Duncan Chow) notorious for his sexual conquests.

A smash hit in its native Taiwan, this breezy romantic comedy was the inaugural production of Three Dots Entertainment, an independent studio committed to the production of commercial genre movies, and was directed by first-timer Chen Yin-jung (aka DJ Chen), a 23 year old graduate of Yuan Ze University. To her credit, Chen tackles the film's subject matter head-on and refuses to cut away when the two guys at the center of Rady Fu's old-fashioned screenplay finally - inevitably - get it on. Yang and Chow maintain a respectful distance from one another at first, each afraid to make that crucial leap of faith, until Yang finally turns up on Chow's doorstep and sighs: "Let's stop pretending, it's tiring", leading to the film's central sex scene, a tasteful affair with lots of kissing and fumbling and raunchy good intentions. Much of the running time, however, is given over to various comic interludes involving Yang's newfound friends (Jin Qin, Dada Ji and Jimmy Yang), a trio of outrageous queens who insist on making a melodrama out of the tiniest crisis. Unfortunately, the comedy is forced and unfunny and a little too excessive at times, but the central love story yields its fair share of tender rewards.

As a vehicle for its ultra-sexy leading men, FORMULA 17 is hard to beat: Yang and Chow (the latter billed simply as 'Duncan') achieved teen idol status in popular Taiwanese TV dramas, where they both played wholly conventional roles. Here, Yang is a childlike innocent searching for True Love, and Chow is a beautiful playboy whose reputation belies his own desperate search for emotional fulfilment. Standout scenes include a comic episode in which Jin and co. set up Yang with a hunky prostitute (Yang Zhi-long) who turns up at Our Hero's apartment posing as a plumber, in a scenario lifted wholesale from countless porn videos; and an early sequence in which Yang and Chow bump into one another while standing at a busy crossroads, where their hesitant overtures are kindled by an elderly gent standing alongside them, who despairs of their reluctance to acknowledge a mutual attraction (this scene has a *very* gay conclusion!). Chen allows the pace to slacken during dialogue exchanges (the bulk of the movie!), which takes some of the fizz out of proceedings, but the film has a virtuous heart and builds to a joyous conclusion which - along with the cute guys and up-front sexuality - probably bolstered its commercial fortunes at the Taiwanese box-office. Production-wise, Chen makes the most of her limited resources, and she's well-served by Chen Huei-sheng's imaginative cinematography, and Zack Gu's designer-label art direction/costume design (leading to the movie's biggest laugh, when Yang pronounces 'Gucci' as 'juicy'!).

NB. Amusingly (or not, depending on your point of view), FORMULA 17 was banned in Singapore by the Films Appeals Committee for creating "an illusion of a homosexual utopia, where everyone, including passersby, is homosexual and no ills or problems are reflected... It conveys the message that homosexuality is normal, and a natural progression in society"! That same year, Singaporean authorities finally allowed the broadcast of popular TV dramedy "Sex and the City", gave the go-ahead for a small number of bars to open 24 hours a day, and partially legalized the sale and consumption of chewing gum...

(Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue)

Although this movie is low budget and completely silly, it revels in that and seems proud of it rather than trying to ignore it. A completely generic plot that anyone can guess, especially if they're familiar with gay fiction, and your typical gay characters would usually mean a boring movie. Instead this film puts together characters that you can completely believe and expect to meet on the street. I found myself thinking "I wish I knew these guys!" many times. A totally adorable wonderful happy movie that will make you giggle and squeal and completely believe in love, even if it's just for the duration of the film, this one is not to be missed. Heartwarming, adorable, real, yet fantastic... I can't rate this one highly enough.

As a Taiwanese, I am very proud of this production. I saw it when I was in Taiwan and loved it. A very funny comedy of a gay utopia in Taipei. No women can be seen in this movie. No aids. No difficulties of coming out. No one dying. Just a gay comedy. Makes everyone happy. I just got the DVD. watched it with my German friends and we all loved it. Sweet and loving. The two leading actors are actually straight. But they did a wonderful job.

Being gay and 17 can be a fabulous thing. And this movie is a great happy statement saying, "I am fag and fabulous!"

I have recently seen several "Asian gay dramas". Formula 17 is one of the best.

An observation I have made is that several of the Asian gay dramas are full of guilt. This is nothing unique to the Asian gay dramas, just think of Brokeback Mountain. But I have seen a few too many films that end in death and general misery, where the conclusion seems to be that being gay is just pain, suffering and misery. Perhaps this is a realistic description in some of the more conservative Asian societies, but if suicide is the only way out for the protagonist of the film, then that is a bad film in my opinion.

Formula 17 is a much more hopeful film. The protagonists have their struggles and problems to deal with. However, these problems are in good sense more everyday. The characters cover a wide and not too subtle spectrum of being gay, and the story is both fun and cute. Yes, it is a bit sugar coated, but why not? Also, the film offers some nice photo of Taiwan. After I saw this film, I wanted to go there.

Highly recommended, especially if you want to see a good Asian gay drama with more fun and less depression.

I think "Formula 17" is excellent because it's an encouraging fair tale for homosexuals, and even for people of all ranks. It's a fair tale, of course, firstly because the two leading roles are both handsome and attractive men, just like the prince and the princess as it would have been in an ordinary fair tale such as "Snow White" or "Cinderella". But the point is that it demonstrates the life of homosexuals not in a realistic, but in a fabulous way. That's good, actually, in my opinion. So I'm shocked when I learn from other's comments that the Singaporean Government bans it for that reason. I don't like it if the film is labeled as a "beautification of homosexuality" or something similar. I think there's touching true love in gay and straight groups alike, as is one-night-stand. So this film is excellent in that it breaks the stereotype of homosexuals in a great number of movies made before. But this fair tale, in addition to the handsome guys, pretty settings, and touching lines, is also encouraging, especially for homosexuals. We are not naive enough to believe that such true love as in the movie can fall upon us so easily as in the movie. But at least there's hope: the hope for true love and the hope for future. And that's what really counts. That's the same for all fair tales. After reading or watching "Snow White" or "Cinderella", we may at first moved by the story and wish we could have the same beautiful life. But later, especially when we've experienced more, we know that we have to try our best to pursue our happiness. The same holds true for "Formula 17", as we can see from some lines such as "Love is only to be seen by the brave ones" and "Even love has the past tense...But we can run faster to catch up with it". As long as we still cherish hope and never give up, we can certainly find our true love and happiness, no matter if we are gay or straight.