Part Time Job


Part Time Job is a 1980 Taiwanese romantic comedy film directed by Lai Cheng-ying, starring Alan Tam and Ing Tsae-ling as two college students on summer break who fall in love while working menial jobs.

Plot

Liang Ta-cheng, from a well-to-do Taipei family, wants to spend this year's summer break working instead of again spending time with his annoying American cousin Ellen, who has a crush on him. This proposal is immediately turned down by his rich father, who considers working menial jobs a disgrace, so Ta-cheng leaves home to join his college friends operating a restaurant. The restaurant struggles to make ends meet with too many workers, and some of the friends are forced to work elsewhere. Ho Kuo-juei finds a job in a hair salon, where he encounters and falls in love with Ellen.
Liang begins working as a superintendent in a residential building, and meets a young babysitter named Ah Hsiang, whom he is instantly smitten with. Because of her work, he believes her to be from a low socioeconomic background, so he takes her to watch Taiwanese opera, not realizing Ah Hsiang feels exactly the same way about him. After getting fired for mistaking burglars as furniture movers, Liang follows Ah Hsiang to work as live-in servants in an estate, where their romance further develops. The family turns out to be highly dysfunctional, forcing them to quit their jobs. Ah Hsiang refuses to tell Liang her home address, and both are heartbroken. Having returned to college after the break, Liang attends a conference for an inter-collegiate association, and discovers the association president is none other than Ah Hsiang. Ah Hsiang is also shocked that Liang is a college student. The film ends with the pair catching the burglars, again posing as movers.

Cast

All songs are included in Tam's 1980 Mandopop album Tanqilai, Changqilai.