‘I didn’t want to make a cheesy rom-com’: The star behind Amazon’s first Australian film

Actor and creator Shuang Hu is an unabashed fan of romantic comedies. “Rom-coms are my favourite genre of all time, I could sit and watch rom-coms forever. When I’m choosing a movie on a plane the first thing I’ll pick is a rom-com. They always make me feel good.”

So it’s little surprise that her new movie, Five Blind Dates, which has the distinction of being the first feature film produced locally by Amazon Prime Video in Australia, is a sweet and funny rom-com, co-created, co-written and starring Hu.

Shuang Hu in the rom-com Five Blind Dates, which is the first feature film produced locally by Amazon Prime Video.

The Chinese-Australian actor plays Lia, a Townsville-raised 20-something who has followed her dream of opening a traditional Chinese tea shop in Sydney, but business is far from booming. After a fortune-teller examines her palm, she is told her love and career lines are intertwined and if she goes on five dates she will find her soulmate save her business. Her family then help set her up to fulfil the prophecy.

“I didn’t want to make a cheesy rom-com,” says Hu. “I wanted to touch on modern romance, more than the traditional ’90s rom-coms with Julia Roberts and the Asian romantic dramas I’m used to watching. I grew up thinking love was going to be a certain way, and then I realised through life that it’s not like the rom-coms. It’s more complicated, especially for the modern woman who feels like it’s a struggle to complete the cycle of life. We want marriage and kids, but how do we do that successfully without feeling like we’re giving up our careers to find true love? I wanted to explore that modern dilemma in the film.”

Five Blind Dates is not only that rarest of beasts, an Australian rom-com, but an Asian-Australian rom-com. Hu’s big break into showbiz came when she was cast as the eldest sister in Benjamin Law’s 2016 comedy The Family Law and then in the 2017 sitcom Ronny Chieng: International Student. Both shows were the brainchildren of fellow Asian creatives. “After being on those shows, I realised if you want to tell your story, you can’t wait for somebody else to tell it for you,” says Hu. “You have to tell it yourself.”

Hu drew heavily on her experiences to add authenticity to Five Blind Dates. She is passionate about tea, and had her own online tea store, and also spent some of her childhood in Townsville. She even incorporated the names of her parents into Lia’s parents’ names.

“I’m excited to tell a story about an Australian family that’s not the traditional Australian family that you have seen on TV,” says Hu. “Romantic comedies are not often produced in Australia, so certainly there’s not many with an Asian-Australian perspective. If you walk down the streets of any major city in Australia, you’ll see so many diverse faces and particularly a lot of Asian faces, so I think it’s important to tell stories that cater to all types of Australian audiences. I also hope that one day it’s not even going to be a conversation because there will just be so much diversity on-screen that represents our true population.”

Those perpetually online might also recognise Hu from her success on social media. She has an impressive 4.5 million followers on TikTok and almost 7 million subscribers on YouTube for her comedic relationship skits. During the pandemic, when the entertainment industry ground to a halt, she started making sketches for TikTok, achieving her first viral video after only two months of posting.

“It has given me opportunities that I would never have gotten if I did not have a social media presence,” says Hu. “I still think talent wins at the end of the day, but maybe compared to someone else with the same talent level, they might choose me because I have an inbuilt audience. It gives you a leg-up.”

Right now, Hu is excited to be on the cusp of unleashing her rom-com not only to audiences, but her parents. “Asian parents always want you to do something with your life,” she says. “I had a stable, well-paying finance job before I quit to pursue acting, and they still think that I’m going to quit this hobby and go back to my finance life, but that’s never going to happen. I’m just excited for them to see that it’s paid off.”

Five Blind Dates streams on Amazon Prime Video from February 13.

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