Film Name: 瘦身男女 / Love On A Diet / Sau sun nam nui
After years, revisiting this old film gave me a completely different perspective.
Love and weight loss—two parallel threads running through the entire movie. The overweight man embodies the ideal partner in my heart.
After shifting my expectations from perfection to simply liking someone, I naturally grasped the difference between love and mere sexual fantasy. The Fat Man—an utterly ordinary guy. He doesn’t close the bathroom door, leaves crumbs everywhere he eats, sucks his fingers while munching, and walks with his belly thrust out and butt sticking up. Yet he has his redeeming qualities: when women play hard to get, he can only glare and stomp his feet; if a woman bites into his apple, he’ll wipe clean the untouched part; his lies lack any originality—always about eating crab in Hokkaido. But he embodies the universally recognized “manly” traits: loyalty, incapable of betraying his promises; Resolute, never seeking rewards for his actions; willing to sacrifice himself for those he loves, no matter the cost. And lastly, I must say, I find him quite handsome.
When the two realized their love, they chose to run away instead. Their stubbornness nearly destroyed the precious bond they shared. Had it not been for the clichéd reunion that brought them back together, both would have ended in tragedy. This is where the love story fails, falling completely into cliché. If only they had pulled back from the brink early on and embraced being a happy pair of chubby lovers (though not so chubby they couldn’t find space for intimacy at night), wouldn’t that have been a better ending?
The other storyline—weight loss—depicts gaining weight from heartbreak and losing it for love. is admittedly the narrowest interpretation of weight loss. Yet the film executes this thread masterfully: when fat, they dared not love each other; when slim, they could be together without restraint. It’s ironic and starkly clear—love, that luxury, is reserved for the thin. Fat people? Lose weight first!
But when viewed through both threads? Clearly, neither is as endearing after losing weight. Personally, I even found them more appealing when plump—their bodies might have been exaggeratedly frightening, but their faces remained adorably chubby. I’m convinced they’d be perfectly delightful even at 200 pounds. What’s fascinating is how their behavior, movements, habits, and even singing voices changed after losing weight. This mirrors reality quite closely—those who’ve experienced extreme weight fluctuations know that being overweight and being slim are entirely different ways of being.
But should our views on weight loss and love be so absolute? If this film hadn’t been made as a commercial production, or if it were filmed in recent years, might the perspective be different?
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