A Trip With Your Wife review: A touching comedy about love and friendship

A Trip With Your Wife stars Bryan Chang as Ah Cheng, whose story is closely knitted with his best friend Ah Zhi (Rhydian Vaughan) and his university sweetheart-turned-wife Xiaoya (Michelle Chen). Ah Cheng is at the point of his life where his business is not doing so well, and his relationship with Xiaoya is strained too. But one day, Ah Zhi, who goes missing after graduating from university, suddenly reappears in their lives with an absurd request: to go on an overseas trip with Xiaoya, alone.

On the surface, A Trip With Your Wife may seem like another attempt from Taiwan at a touching, romance movie. However, the story goes beyond romance with an added friendship element to it. The plot alternates between the current time period, when Ah Cheng follows after the two on a trip to Canada and hopes to get his wife back, and the past, during their university days when Ah Zhi helps Ah Cheng to win Xiaoya’s heart. As the movie unfolds, events start to piece together and reveal the truth behind each character.

Although the story may be predictable and can be unrealistic, a number of twists have been planted in the plot, which send the audience on a roller-coaster journey of emotions. Bouts of humour are also a pleasant addition to spice up the movie.

Furthermore, be it coincidental or on purpose, the lead actors have previously worked on iconic Taiwanese romance films that have left a deep impression on the audience. Michelle Chen is best known for playing the character Shen Chia-yi in You Are The Apple Of My Eye (2011) by Giddens Ko. It is definitely great to see Michelle Chen as the heroine in a romance movie again after a decade.

Bryan Chang has portrayed a tragic role in the tear-jerking More Than Blue (2018). To top it off, the creative team — director Gavin Lin, screenwriter Hermes Lu and producer Rita Chuang — is also the same as the one that produced More Than Blue, the highest-grossing Taiwanese film of 2018.

Another interesting factor of recent Taiwanese films is the theme song. For A Trip With Your Wife, the theme song is Imperfect Me by Jam Hsiao, which is a perfect fit for the movie. As Jam Hsiao’s powerful voice pierced through the silence of an emotional scene, the waterworks floodgate is unleashed such that even without the lyrics, it is enough to make one’s tears fall.

Under the disguise of a comedy, A Trip With Your Wife is a touching love story not just between couples, but also between friends.

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