Set in Australia, the movie tells the story of a tea shop that is owned by a Chinese immigrant in Sydney, Lia. Her grandmother recently passed away, and she is trying to honor her by using her elder’s saved money to open the ‘Popo’s Tea Time’ cafe in Sydney, where she serves traditional Chinese tea. Lia goes to Australia to pass on her cultural values to the residents of Sydney.
However, Lia doesn’t want to face her family, and after attending her sister’s engagement party, she tells lies to her family members about her expenditures and the fact that she has only a month’s worth of rent left for her tea shop, which might force her to close it.
Nora is Lia’s family member, who claims to be into fortune-telling, and warns Lia that because of a person on the last five dates she goes on, she will be able to unlock the true potential of the tea shop. It turns out that reaching out to her family to introduce her to her future blind dates was completely unnecessary because she soon realized that she knew her soulmate.
The movie is centered around Lia, who has to go on five dates within five days before her sister’s marriage as she is looking for her soulmate. The screenplay has all the elements which make it a perfect romantic comedy like family issues, sibling rivalry, an ex-boyfriend from childhood, and the makeup transformation.
The plot has some brief interludes about the Chinese culture through the eyes of Lia, who is dealing with the loss of her grandmother. Lia keeps her family’s traditions by running a Chinese tea business. The film is funny and offers no challenges to the audience and that is exactly what Five Blind Dates is within its genre of a light romantic comedy filled with clichés. It makes the script very straightforward and unoriginal in its approach, but the story is cute and entertaining, so it is forgivable.
Lia is a complex character with charm and allure, but is also full of contradictions at the same time. Sometimes she is fragile and anxious because she does not want to disappoint her deceased grandmother, but at other times, she is like “I don’t care” and acts in the most bizarre ways. She is imaginative and strong-willed, which makes her an interesting character to cheer for in the movie.
Her best friend wins every party, he’s charismatic and always has friendly shoulders to cry on. He is brutally honest and is vital to Lias’ personal development as he speaks the truth to her when it is necessary. The supporting character whom she was always looking up to, is her mother, a performer who is a killer in both fashion and looks in every single scene.
Lia’s father brings in some light-hearted fun into the movie since he is cool and completely different from his wife. Her sister is beautiful, kind, cheerful, and ever-ready to please others as if she is a Barbie doll in real life.
Though all the support cast put up good acts and are quite lovable, Lia’s first true love, Richard, is especially entitled to more frames. The side support characters are all presented with the protagonist Lia and do not give them the room to develop or lift if any, other layers that they may have.
All in all, Five blind dates is an appropriate movie to watch for those in love with romantic comedies because it fulfills all the cliches without being too original. The one potential downside being the safety in writing, which renders the film boring and lacking in creativity, and too predictable. In this case, the writing is dull and always paints the picture in the confines of a modern romantic comedy.
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