Naman Shrestha
Amazon Prime’s ‘Five Blind Dates’ stars Shuang Hu in the portrayal of Lia, a young woman in her 20s who prioritizes her business more than her love life. Despite all her efforts, the traditional Chinese tea shop she inherited from her grandmother is failing. With her sister’s wedding approaching, she returns home and attends her engagement party, where she is told by a fortune teller that the success of her business is directly dependent on her love life. When the teller tells her that she will meet her soulmate in her next five dates, Lia’s family sets her up with five potential suitors.
Now, supported by her best friend Mason, Lia reluctantly goes on five blind dates and finds out if the fortune teller is right or if another disappointment awaits her that will lead to her losing the business altogether. Besides Shuang Hu, the Australian romantic comedy features brilliant performances from talented actors, including Philip Lynch, Ilai Swindells, Tiffany Wong, and Yoson An. The Shawn Seet directorial is layered with the concept of fortune-telling and blind dating, both of which are not unheard of in real life, leaving the viewers questioning the authenticity of ‘Five Blind Dates.’
Five Blind Dates is Loosely Inspired By Shuang Hu’s Life
Yes, ‘Five Blind Dates’ is somewhat based on a true story. The lead actor, Shuang Hu, is also the co-screenwriter of the rom-com. While she was looking for a co-writer, she decided to get in touch with a writer-friend and got introduced to Nathan Ramos-Park. The two met up and instantly hit it off. So, accompanied by Ramos-Park, she was able to dramatize some of the instances from her real life and turn them into a script. During a conversation with Amazon, Shuang was asked to elaborate on the source of inspiration for ‘Five Blind Dates.’ She answered, “It was born out of a blind date with my writing partner Nathan…We had a mutual friend who brought us together. I told him that I love tea and I used to have a tea shop in Australia and how I’m very passionate about it—but also how I’m feeling very stressed because my family is pressuring me to get married.”
Shuang elaborated, “We were laughing about how funny it would be if they had to pick our dates for us…we were just merging all these ideas based on my life. It was a funny idea we thought would be quite interesting to make into a rom-com.” In the same interview, she also admitted that her parents were eager to get her married and become a mother. She blamed their pickiness for her not having settled down with a partner as she had brought numerous eligible bachelors to her home, none of whom were approved of by them. Furthermore, she said that she might as well have been married with some kids if not for her parents’ interference in her love life.
In real life, just like the protagonist’s approach to life, Shuang admitted that she too preferred to choose his career over relationships, which was one of the main reasons why none of them really worked out for her. Furthermore, given the stage at which she was in her career, she said that she might be ready to invest her time and energy in a relationship and finally make it work. She stated, “And that’s what inspired me with the movie. There’s only 24 hours in a day…You have to pick one thing over the other and it’s really hard to make a relationship work when you prioritize your career.”
Talking to Harper Bazaar, Shuang called the writing process for ‘Five Blind Dates’ quite therapeutic as during the sessions, she used to tell Nathan stories from her own life to incorporate them into the screenplay. She said, “And because writing requires a lot of understanding of human nature, I think through that process, it helped me understand more about myself — why I do things, and maybe why I am where I am in life right now — and the choices that got me here. And I had to accept it…and stop, I guess, outwardly blaming — looking inside and accepting where I was because of the decisions I made, and being okay with it. So it was really therapeutic. Fun at times, but very therapeutic.” Thus, taking the aforementioned factors into account, we can conclude that some portions of ‘Five Blind Dates’ are derived from the life of Shuang Hu but dramatized for entertainment purposes.
Read More: Amazon Prime’s Five Blind Dates: All Shooting Locations Explored
