Chuck chucks anyone? A funny flick with great guffaws

What’s a chuck chuck? Well, think back to your childhood when you were asked “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

That being said, not sure “woodchuck” is a scientifically authenticated term for a tree-hugging/loving varmint. But “chuck chuck” we all know means a quip, joke, aphorism or misuse of the language that elicits chuckles, ergo: chuck chucks. Write it down reader! So, here we are, nearly a year after COVID-19 started making headlines. So how are you all coping, me peeps?

If you are giving a virtual thumbs down, I have a lesser-known Chinese film to take the edge off the plague malaise.

After all, laughter is the best Rx, and here is a Chinese-language feature film guaranteed to reignite your faith in Homo sapiens.

It’s a romcom from a director based in Taiwan — Chen Yiwen.

Full disclosure, Chen is a personal friend of mine who I knew during my graduate study days at New York University.

As a matter of fact, while I was a journalist in Taiwan, on Sept 11, 2001, Chen was the first to call me from New York to say: “Turn on your TV.”

This was before smartphones, and I will forever be in his debt.

Chen directed a little-known masterpiece the year prior.

He directed The Cabbie (Yun zhuan shou zhi lian), which was so well received that it became a submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the best foreign language film, but ultimately was not accepted as a nominee.

The asynchronous narrative of taxi driver Daquan is interrupted with asides, aphorisms and allegories that defy chronology. Think frenetic jump-phasing a la Pulp Fiction.

The cabbie’s background encompasses the first portion of the feature-length film, including the back story behind his coroner mom’s courtship of his father, how he came to embrace the taxi driver occupation (no, he didn’t have a “you looking at me?” mirror moment), why pop chose a workplace overlooking a deadly intersection and some pharmaceutical experimentation by his sister.

To this point, his glorified rickshaw life is decidedly unremarkable and lacking drive. But as he is driving, he is smitten by policewoman Jingwen (Japanese star Miyazawa, well-dubbed into Chinese) and after his first moving violation, he does his darndest to be stopped and ticketed by the comely cop.

From there it’s merely academic, though their courtship is not without police roadblocks.

The following scenes involve the cabbie speeding (literally) past the pretty policewoman a cringeworthy amount of times to elicit her attention.

Eventually, perhaps because her plus-one is present, she finally stiffs out the arm and pulls the licentious lead-foot curbside.

The rest is history and far be it from me to be a spoiler alert type.

As we tentatively paw our way out of hibernation or quarantine and brave the dangers of restaurants, airports, schools and malls, take a gander at The Cabbie to boost our immunity, in more ways than one.

What struck me most about this romcom, and one not without a generous helping of drama (no spoiler alerts here), was the tenacity of the taxi driver as well as the power of love. The moment Daquan laid eyes on traffic cop Jingwen, he was smitten, and no frighteningly bankbreaking accumulation of moving violations was going to dissuade him from pursuing his love interest. And he had a steep hill to climb as his courtship gratingly got on the beautiful Jingwen’s nerves, but his perseverance paid off in the end. Such tenacity is a lesson that all of us can learn from as we continue to struggle through the pandemic and await “return to normal” lives.