'Suffocating Love' Ending Explained & Full Story: Who's The Mysterious Woman?

Taiwanese film Suffocating Love stays quite faithful to its title for the first half, as we see our central protagonist (the name is never revealed, and there’s no information on IMDB either, but as per the Letterboxd page, it reads as M) finding it really difficult to deal with his extremely controlling girlfriend. Up until the point of M having the big confrontation with Pai Chia-Chi regarding his secret affair with Lin Ai-Hsuan, the movie stays quite grounded. But then it decides to bring in an unexpected twist and goes off the rails during the second half, which doesn’t do it much good. Instead of sticking to the realistic approach taken for the first half, the choice of depending on magic realism for the second is what brings the movie down. The messy climax with an ambiguous ending just for the heck of it doesn’t quite help either. We’re particularly going to focus on the ending in this article and also do a quick recap.

Spoilers Ahead

Getting straight to the point, Suffocating Love begins with M narrating about the pressure he feels in his relationship. The film then takes us back to the past. Sparks fly between M and Pai Chia-Chi when the two meet for a book exchange. Well, it’s M who’s instantly smitten by the manic pixie dream girl, so he keeps exchanging books with her, which ultimately leads to things happening between the two. However, Chia-Chi lets M know that there can’t be any sex until they get married, as she is a devout Christian. M is okay with that as he loves her. A year passes by, and the two move in together. The trouble begins only after that. They say you only get to know someone once you start living with them. For M, it turns out to be quite the nightmare as Chia-Chi starts imposing her set of rules on him. The rules vary from standard problematic to strangely problematic: M has to eat whatever Chia-Chi cooks (she’s a vegetarian, by the way, so no meat at home); Chia-Chi will check M’s phone and receipts every day after he comes home; he has to take a shower every time before getting on the bed; promptly reply to her texts; have the location of his phone on for her when he’s not with her; and so on. Quite naturally, M’s life turns into quite the horror show. 

The introduction of Lin Ai-Hsuan comes as a breath of fresh air to M’s life. She is his new client at work but also happens to be the girl he used to be crazy about in school. As fate would have it, Ai-Hsuan is also having issues in her seven-year-long relationship where her boyfriend and she have become distant from each other. An affair between M and Ai-Hsuan was bound to happen under the circumstances, and that’s exactly how it goes. Both of them find the happiness they were longing for. Ai-Hsuan even presents M a phone so that he can communicate with her freely (Chia-Chi keeps checking on his primary phone). Just like the affair, M telling the painful truth to Chia-Chi and breaking up with her was inevitable. There’s an issue for him, though; she is kind of sick. It’s not that she is dying or anything, but it is enough to make him feel guilty. This is something the movie could have done away with by the way, as it doesn’t have any relevance. Anyway, Chia-Chi is devastated once she knows the truth. But instead of letting M go, she attempts to change herself for him. She cooks a non-vegetarian meal for the first time and even starts eating meat for him. M is now in a fix—whether to leave his girlfriend who’s really trying to win him back, or not?

Just when you are genuinely invested in the movie, Suffocating Love suddenly decides to turn into a whole different movie—if you know what I mean. Early on in the movie, we did see M casually showing off his internet crush – Kurosawa Yuri, a popular photography influencer. One night, M has this strange dream where he meets this bald man in red costume, who asks him to make one wish that is going to come true. M hesitates, and before he says anything, the man shoots him. He wakes up and then finds Kurosawa Yuri sleeping beside him. Soon M realizes that his life has changed magically. In what should be considered an alternate reality, Kurosawa Yuri is his girlfriend, and they are in an absolutely perfect relationship. She might be a busy influencer, but she never forgets to cook and deliver him a bento box and his bottle of water every single day at his office by herself. She changes his sheets, takes care of his toiletries even though they don’t live together. Unlike his relationship with Chia-Chi, M is not controlled here. Of course he is startled, as for him this is a new reality, but thanks to the internet and Fei—who believes M, even though what he says is pretty ludicrous—he slowly settles into this new life. Just like Chia-Chi’s illness, I don’t think this story needed Kurosawa Yuri to get pregnant, but it puts M in a fix. She is literally the perfect woman, but for him it’s all new, and he’s not ready to be a father. But he gets on with it, as it seems to be the logical choice. But things are never how they seem, right? So M ends up discovering his dream of a girlfriend is actually a witch, who does a ritual every Wednesday and puts some kind of liquid in his food and water. Suddenly he starts to feel that getting controlled by Chia-Chi was better than this. He does get to see Chia-Chi, with another man, in this new reality, at a car showroom. The bald man from his dream just happens to be the car salesman. Suddenly M finds himself inside a dream again. The bald man reveals that it was Chia-Chi who actually made the wish; her wish was for M to have his wish—whatever it was—fulfilled. In return, she only wanted one thing: her memories with M gone. I wonder why M didn’t wish for a life with Ai-Hsuan here. It kind of seems like both he and the movie have suddenly forgotten about the character. Anyway, the bald man asks M to make another wish here before shooting him again. M wakes up at his home, with a woman beside him, but we don’t get to see her face. And that’s the note the movie ends on. 

Alright, here I come with my theory. Before going into that, I should mention that popping ten thousand bubbles of bubble wrap to make your wish come true is a fun little thing this movie has come up with, which I found quite cool. Now coming to the all-important question, I’m sure most of you have noticed that all three women—Chia-Chi, Ai-Hsuan, and Kurosawa Yuri—have a rabbit tattoo on the upper right side of the back. The movie emphasizes that to the extent that we can’t help but notice them. In his dream gateways, M also keeps getting visions of a rabbit. The question is, what does this signify? Well, I hate to tell you that nothing constructive can be deducted from that other than the fact that rabbits are often seen as a symbol of both innocence and fertility. However, what we can assume here is that the woman in the end is Pai Chia-Chi. Appearance-wise, she doesn’t look like Ai-Hsuan, and if it’s Kurosawa Yuri, then it also doesn’t make much sense. However, given it is still M’s apartment, it might actually be Kurosawa Yuri and not Chia-Chi. If Kurosawa is not a witch in this one, then what’s the harm? That said, I still don’t understand why the movie suddenly sidelined Ai-Hsuan’s character. To be very honest, among all the three women, she is the one who seems like the best choice of partner for M. There’s not much to conclude from my side, but feel free to share your opinion.