Easily one of the most important directors of 1970s Taiwan cinema, Tsun-Shou Sung daringly tells the story of adultery by a young mother. In the unusual scenario, a young boy witnesses his mother’s cheating ways and, after the death of his sick father, grows to despise her. When he’s adopted by another family, the road to reconciliation proves achingly difficult.
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Tag Archives: Taiwan
Guang yin de gu shi / In Our Time (1982) Yi Chang, I-Chen Ko, Te-chen Tao, Edward Yang, Emily Y. Chang, Sylvia Chang, Chi Chen, Sheng-wen Lan, Drama
Four short films from four different directors, spanning from the 1950s to the 1980s.
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Xi yan / Garcon d’honneur / The Wedding Banquet (1993) Ang Lee, Winston Chao, May Chin, Ya-Lei Kuei, Comedy, Drama, Romance
A gay New Yorker stages a marriage of convenience with a young woman to satisfy his traditional Taiwanese family, but the wedding becomes a major inconvenience when his parents fly in for the ceremony…
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A Brighter Summer Day / Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian (1991) Edward Yang, Chen Chang, Lisa Yang, Kuo-Chu Chang, Crime, Drama, Romance
Among the most praised and sought-after titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang, finally comes to home video in the United States. Set in the early sixties in Taiwan, A Brighter Summer Day is based on the true story of a crime that rocked the nation. A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual, inexorable fall of a young teenager (Chen Chang, in his first role) from innocence to juvenile delinquency, and is set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil.
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Spider Lilies / Ci qing (2007) Zero Chou, Rainie Yang, Isabella Leong, Kris Shen, Drama, Romance
Jade (Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang) is a cute, young webcam performer who thinks that getting a tattoo will enhance her sexy performance skills. Upon venturing out to the tattoo parlor owned by half-Japanese ink-slinger Takeko (Isabella Leong), Jade recalls a crush she harbored ten years ago. Subsequently entering into a surreal cyberspace seduction that emerges through computer images, flashbacks, and lavish costumes highlighted by lime-green wigs, Takeko finds the lines between reality and fantasy blurring as Jade’s teasing slowly chips away at her fragile facade.
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