Five Blind Dates (2024)

Five Blind Dates Review

Romantic comedies aren’t as difficult to make as Five Blind Dates implies. Lifetime and Hallmark pump out feel good movies every week. They may not be original, but they know what works.

Five Blind Dates doesn’t have trouble with the premise. It’s everything else that continually falls apart like Jenga during an earthquake. The foundation is faulty which makes for a frustrating watch.

Co-writer Shuang Hu stars as Lia, a young woman trying to open a tea shop in honor of her grandmother. Business is slow and she’s starting to get eviction notices, partly because she doesn’t serve Boba tea that many potential customers ask for; instead she would prefer them to experience a more refined teamaking process probably at the expense of keeping lights on her business acumen would probably not be approved of by grandmother.

At her sister Alice’s (Tiffany Wong) engagement party, a fortune teller tells Lia she will meet her soulmate within five dates before the end of the wedding who will also bring great prosperity to her business.

Obviously this soulmate is Richard (Yoson An, Plane), her childhood BFF, but Lia must remain unaware until the end because rom com cliches.

This delay allows her mother Jing (Renee Lim), father Xian (Tzi Ma, The Farewell) and Alice to set up their prospective candidates for Lia while Xian mentions a bet which could have been a fun way to take it and make a competition of who has the “winning” blind date among three family members while Lia tries to figure out what she wants personally and professionally.

The problems are plenty: She isn’t driven to find love, she’s doing it so people come into her store. She has no desire or head in clouds mentality about finding someone to spend rest of life with and puts out very little effort in general; thus making it hard for audience to care whether or not she connects with anyone.

Lia is also unnecessarily mean to Richard and her family, who have clearly done nothing but be there for her, which they are not obnoxious enough to warrant.

Hu and co-writer Nathan Ramos-Park put most of the comedic burden on Lia’s business partner/requisite gay pal Mason (Ilai Swindells), with a problem: Mason isn’t funny just very gay. At this point in rom coms, woman has a gay BFF; it’s boring. There is nothing revelatory or interesting about Mason giving sassy advice and chasing after/landing any dude. Maybe have him set her up?

Director Shawn Seet doesn’t shy away from slapstick moments that come off too melodramatic, hokey and unbelievable even for the most generous rom com standards.

Hu shows clear leading lady potential and would easily shine given better material; ironically, Hu the screenwriter significantly holds Hu the actress back.

Five Blind Dates is a full swipe left. It completely whiffs on its potential and delivers next to no comedy or compelling romance.

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