Taiwan

  • Hui-Chen Huang – Ri Chang Dui Hua AKA Small Talk (2016)

    2011-2020DocumentaryHui-Chen HuangTaiwan

    Quote:
    Small Talk is a 2016 Taiwanese documentary feature film in which the director Huang Hui-chen attempts to reveal and reconcile a painful past shared between herself and her mother A-nu, a lesbian Taoist priestess.Read More »

  • Leon Dai – Bu neng mei you ni AKA Cannot Live Without You (2009)

    2001-2010AsianDramaLeon DaiTaiwan

    Synopsis
    A down and out man and his daughter live in an illegal hovel. The two live a happy peaceful life until the authorities intervene when the child reaches school age.Read More »

  • Nien-Jen Wu – Duo sang AKA A Borrowed Life (1994)

    1991-2000DramaNien-Jen WuTaiwan

    Director Wu Nien-Jen’s autobiographical portrait of his father and the family conflict that develops around him, set against the background of dramatic political change in Taiwan.

    Sega, a coal-miner who grew up in the years of Japanese colonial rule over Taiwan, is more strongly attracted to Japanese identity and culture than to the Mainland Chinese model imposed after the Kuomintang takeover in 1945. His son Wen-Jian on the other hand, typically for his generation, has a natural allegiance to Chinese culture. He is baffled by and impatient with his father’s fondness for the Japanese, a bafflement intensified by the harshly negative portrayal of Japanese imperialist ambitions and wartime atrocities he is exposed to at school.Read More »

  • King Hu & Hsing Lee & Ching-jui Pai – Da lunhui aka The Wheel of Life (1983) (DVD)

    1981-1990AsianChing-jui PaiHsing LeeKing HuMartial ArtsTaiwan

    Daw Ming Lee, The Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema:
    King Hu’s next film was a portmanteau film,The Wheel of Life/Da lunhui (1983), in which he once again codirected with Lee Hsing and Pai Chingjui, as he did in Four Moods. The Wheel of Life revolves around romance between two men and a woman that repeats itself in several generations. Hu was responsible for the story of the first generation, set in the Ming dynasty that he was most familiar with. It is an intriguing romantic story involving a secret service agent, the daughter of the governor, and the leader of the antigovernment army who is plotting vengeance. Hu directed the episode well. This film, too, failed at the box office.Read More »

  • Fred Tan – An ye AKA Dark Night (1986)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaFred TanTaiwan

    BeyondHollywood wrote:
    Originally released back in 1986, Taiwanese drama Dark Night was based upon a novel by noted feminist writer Li Ang and was directed and scripted by Fred Tan, who previously worked as an assistant director for the legendary King Hu on the likes of Raining in the Mountain and Legend of the Mountain. Interestingly, the film was not Tan’s only literary adaptation, as in 1988 he brought Lust, Caution novelist Eileen Chang’s book Rouge of the North to the screen. Given the source material, it should come as no surprise that the film deals with themes of adultery and sexual repression, offering up a scathing depiction of the role of women in modern relationships.Read More »

  • Elvis Lu – The Shepherds (2018)

    2011-2020DocumentaryElvis LuQueer Cinema(s)Taiwan

    Despite harsh condemnation and denunciation from society, a heterosexual female pastor founded Taiwan’s first LGBT-affirming church in May 1996. For LGBT Christians, who had been rejected by the Christian community for a long time, they finally have a church that offers them a safe haven. Though the founder has passed away, the church members continue to make their voice heard, confronting the unjust social institutions while struggling with religious conflict at the same time. Come hell or high water, they strive to make a difference in the lives of others by telling their own life stories, in hope that love will eventually trump hate and solve misunderstanding someday.Read More »

  • Ming-liang Tsai – He liu AKA The River (1997)

    1991-2000DramaMing-liang TsaiRomanceTaiwan

    Quote:
    An unemployed young man named Hsiao-Kang (Lee Kang-sheng) passes idle time at a local Taipei mall when he encounters an old friend (Chen Shiang-chyi) on the opposite escalator. With time on his hands, he agrees to accompany her back to the location shoot where she is working as a production assistant for a film. At the site, the director is displeased with the unrealistic appearance of a mannequin intended to represent a dead body floating on the river, and asks the aimless Hsiao-Kang to act as a stand-in for the shot.Read More »

  • Ming-liang Tsai – Hai Jiao Tian Ya AKA All the Corners of the World (1989)

    1981-1990DramaMing-liang TsaiTaiwanTV

    Quote:
    All the Corners of the World sees the family unit as a disaster waiting to happen. Mr and Mrs Chang live in Taipei’s Hsi-Men-Ding (the city’s entertainment/red light/nightlife district) with their teenaged kids. The parents work as cleaners in a “love hotel” and send the kids out to work as ticket scalpers, block-buying seats for hit movies like A City of Sadness and reselling them at a profit. Tragedy strikes when the daughter Mei-Hsueh flirts with the idea of prostituting herself and changes her mind at the last moment, leaving her first client with injuries that put him on the critical list. The focus throughout is on the son Ah Tong, who has a latent talent as a writer that is never going to flower.Read More »

  • Yu Wang – Du bi quan wang da po xue di zi AKA Master of the Flying Guillotine (1975)

    1971-1980AsianMartial ArtsTaiwanYu Wang

    Storyline:
    The one-armed boxer is stalked by a vengeful flying guillotine expert, after his disciples were killed in the first ‘One-Armed Boxer’ film. But as the flying guillotine master is blind, he starts his quest by becoming a serial killer of one-armed men. Meanwhile, the one-armed boxer is running a martial arts school, where he teaches his pupils to control their breath so they can run up walls and along ceilings. And there’s an Indian fakir whose arms can extend until they’re ten feet long. As you may have gathered, a rational plot summary is pretty pointless – but rest assured there are epic martial arts battles and ludicrously inspired moments galore.Read More »

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