Full disclosure: Five Blind Dates should have been a Hallmark film that somehow became a part of Amazon Prime’s never-ending film library. The Australian romance drama film revolves around a 30-year-old woman, Lia Ling, played by the beautiful Shuang Hu, who runs a tea shop, Popo Tea Time (named after her grandmother), in the heart of Sydney, Australia. Lia hails from a small town called Townsville and has come to the big city to carry on her grandmother’s legacy and pursue her dreams, but tragically, her tea shop is on the brink of closing down, as Lia is too rigid in her beliefs and doesn’t want to sell bubble tea, as that’s not a “tea.” So, let’s find out if Lia is able to save her tea shop and find her soulmate at the end of five blind dates.
Spoiler Alert
Plot Summary: What Is the Film About?
So, Five Blind Dates began with Lia going back to her hometown to attend her sister Alice’s engagement party, and that was where the real problem began. We found out that Lia’s mother, Jing, didn’t want Lia to move to another city, but Lia fought for her dreams and therefore started a cold war with her mother. Apparently, Lia’s father, Xian, left their mother a while back, after which Jing took full responsibility for the girls and became obsessed with taking care of her. Lia had the heart to go against her mother’s wishes, but Alice didn’t dare to rebel and therefore stayed back in Townsville and fell in love with a man named Nigel and decided to marry him.
At the engagement party, the family invited a fortune teller named Mrs. Li, who read Lia’s palm and told her that her love and career lines were tangled, which meant the success of her tea shop depended on finding the right soulmate, and she needed to do the hunt before “the wedding.” Mrs. Li didn’t clarify whose wedding it was, so that was the twist in the end. The fortune teller also added that Lia would find Mr. Perfect on the next five dates she would go on and therefore became the hustler to find five blind dates for Lia, as per the title of the film.
When it is a matter of love and marriage, a family can’t resist poking their nose into it, and the same thing happened with Lia. Her father, mother, and Alice arranged three dates for Lia with potential grooms of their choice, but all three dates ended up in disaster as it just wasn’t something Lia was looking for. These 3 men—Apollo, Ezra, and Curtis—personified the likes and desires of Lia’s father, mother, and sister, respectively, which Lia soon understood and walked out of without further ado. With Ezra, however, it was quite a funny scene, as the aforementioned schoolteacher was in love with Lia’s mother but didn’t have the courage to tell his principal (yes, Lia’s mother ran a school in the small community). Thankfully, in a moment of anger, Lia revealed Ezra’s true feelings to her mother, which brought Ezra and Jing together in the end. As for Lia, she still needed to find her soulmate and save her tea shop.
How Did Lia Save Her Tea Shop?
During the dress-fitting event, Lia finally vented out years of anger at her mother for being so overprotective and ruining their entire childhood. Apparently, Jing wasn’t happy with Xian because she shifted her entire focus to the girls but, in the process, started to control their lives. When Lia decided to move out of Townsville, her decision went against her mother, which was why Jing went all out to stop Lia from leaving the town, but she did. Alice, on the other hand, was too afraid to speak up and therefore became a mama’s girl. In a heated argument, Lia lashed out at her mother, sister, and father and broke all ties with her family. Alice even asked her not to attend the wedding. Ouch! Well, that seemed like a point of no return in the story.
At the tea shop, Lia vented out the same anger on a social media influencer who entered the shop asking for a “Bubble Tea.” Yes, he said those trigger words and faced Lia’s wrath, which, being an influencer, he obviously captured on his phone. Conveniently, Lia’s clip went viral, and people made memes and remixed edits out of it, similar to what he saw with various Indian television soaps. Thankfully, it all worked in Lia’s favor as a horde of customers arrived at her tea shop within a week and purchased all kinds of tea and crockery, therefore giving an instant boost to her business. So, in a way, Lia became a successful tea shop owner without a soulmate. Or maybe the soulmate was right in front of her the whole time, and she failed to notice?
How Did Lia and Richard End Up Together?
So, from the very beginning, Five Blind Dates did make it clear that Richard would eventually become Lia’s soulmate, but it wasn’t clear how or when. Lia had known Richard since childhood, and they were apparently best friends who promised each other at the age of 15 that they would move to Sydney to set up Popo’s tea shop. Yes, Richard knew Popo and had tasted all her tea recipes, I guess. What I want to say here is that Richard was a lot like Lia, and this could either be the best thing in a relationship or the worst one. Moving forward, Richard failed to fulfill his promise because his mother fell sick, so he backed out. However, he didn’t reveal the real reason to Lia; otherwise, she would have canceled her plans and stayed back with Richard. Now, they never mentioned it, but I feel Richard and Lia had been in love since childhood. They might not have confessed their feelings, but the spark was definitely there.
In the future, Lia saw Richard at Alice’s engagement party, and all those memories flashed before her eyes. She even remembered the broken promises and therefore didn’t want to continue a conversation with him, but Richard tried his best to give their relationship a second chance. While Lia was searching for her soulmate on blind dates, Richard was trying to find excuses to meet Lia and spend some time together. Nigel had made Richard the best man for the wedding while Alice chose Lia to be her maid of honor. But Lia being Lia, kept avoiding Richard until, in the end, she found out the reason why Richard broke the promise. Yes, Alice’s fiancé, Nigel, blurted it out all for the audience and Lia, and that was it—the moment of realization. Lia couldn’t hold back any longer, and she ran to meet Richard after Alice’s wedding, where they kissed and sealed their future together.
Five Blind Dates’ ending reveals that Lia has started selling bubble tea at her tea shop. Wow, that was some serious character development! She has even started a takeaway service; in case you are in Sydney, do visit the shop. Nah, just kidding. It isn’t a real tea shop. Nevertheless, Lia now has her man by her side, who often visits the shop, but I don’t think Richard would be staying in Sydney or helping Lia with the shop all the time as he has his own restaurant to take care of. Or maybe the couple would find an arrangement to make it work. What’s important is the fact that they are happy together. As for Mason, they are happy with Lia’s success and might be dating the rich lad Apollo, as Apollo himself had told Lia that he wouldn’t mind having a mistress or mister around.
What Did Lia’s Last Speech Mean?
At the end of Alice’s wedding, Lia shared her late grandmother’s beliefs, putting an emphasis on individual actions and choices. According to Popo, the same leaf can make five different types of tea, as it is how one treats the leaf that yields different results. And the same can be said about the people around us. We all come from the same tree and are very much alike, but our relationships and understanding of people depend on how we choose to treat them in life. It is important to be humble towards each other, and more importantly, we should try to understand a person’s perspective before coming to a conclusion. Thankfully, Lia learned her lesson at the end of the film, and we are sure that she will spread her grandmother’s words through her successful tea shop.
