Discoveries from Taiwan World Cinema

Romance and office politics collide in this steamy thriller.

During Lunar New Year, a family gathers to eat; but nobody is eating. Grandma looks towards the empty chair, nobody dares to start the meal. The room stays silent as the hot pot bubbles. Everyone gets hungrier and hungrier. The Son has had enough, and breaks the silence. He tells the story of the Argali Goat.

Mickey is a twenty-something Taiwanese woman: sporting short hair, a baseball cap, and impressive tattoos, she’s both tough and depressed. Her best friend, Gin Gin, is an ultra-femme bleached blonde go-go dancer. Gin discovers she’s pregnant while her boyfriend is ghosting her. Since he’s also in Guangzhou, Micky and Gin Gin decide to head out on the road together. After their luggage is stolen, they’re taken in by a stranger and introduced to a glitzy, bizarrely otherworldly urban metropolis, and their road trip takes several strange and frightening turns.

Tells the story of "Bao sheng da di"--A marvelous man who wanted to become a doctor so that he could save his mother's life.

The heavenly maiden comes to earth in the form of a mortal and with her kung fu skills stamps out some evil doers.

Taiwanese comedy.

Taiwanese horror movie from 1977.

On a winter evening in 1979, the arrest of anti-government protesters is underway. The city is under curfew, but a teenage student, out of curiosity, follows a mysterious young man from a riverside path into an abandoned hut. Living in Taiwan under martial law, are men constantly escaping from government, society, or the affection buried in their hearts?

Comedy about a businessman who hires killers to kill himself when he goes bankrupt.

On the day of the 7th-seven, Lin Sang came to Zhiyan's house to condole. In front of the mourning hall, Zhiyan lit the cigarette in his mouth with a match. One afternoon, Zhiyan's father hurried to school. All he saw was his father nodding his head in front of him. Zhiyan, who went home after his father, saw Zhan Chen at the school gate, with his father saying, "Why can't you just like girls?"

Taiwanese horror movie from 1977.

A Taiwanese language film. After the death of their mother, Siok-hui sings in a nightclub to support her younger sister Siok-tshing, but her immature sister looks down on her occupation. Siok-tshing then begins working in a pharmaceutical company where she has a crush on her colleague Bun-pin. But little does she know that Bun-pin has fallen passionately in love with her sister. When she finally discovers the truth, she runs away and drowns her sorrows at a bar. There, a lascivious businessman who stalks her sister forces here to go with him to a hotel. Siok-hui rushes to the hotel, where she finds the man lying in a pool of blood...

Four Chinese germ warfare scientists are kidnapped by a Japanese organisation.

Just coming out of the jail, depressed and close-hearted, Ah Yu met two men with different characters from each other. One is a businessman, charming and mature; the other is a young supervisor in a factory with a promising future. But these two loves are short-lived, fading away like bubbles on the beach. With a wounded soul, she went back to the cottage owned by Sister An, a friend from jail.

Two kidnappers, a female host who’s lost her shine, cross paths with high school students. Each character harbors their own secrets. As they discover something supernatural in a large hotel, they attempt to host both spirits and flesh.

There is a another soul living in CaCa's body. Just as she decides to come clean with her biological gender, her boyfriend proposes to her. Should she confess, at the risk of losing all the happiness she ever had, or should she keep things the way they are? A phone call then takes her back to her hometown which she had long left behind, where her sister needs her to take care of their mother who is mentally ill.

Tsai interrupted his pre-production for The River to make this pioneering documentary for Taiwan's nascent AIDS-awareness campaign. Ignoring instructions to 'play down the gay angle', he centres the film on his own very candid conversations with two HIV+ young men. Sadly the identities of the interviewees have to be concealed, and so the freewheeling camerawork focuses most often on Tsai himself; but the sense of rapport between the director and his 'new friends' is palpable and very moving, even to Western viewers already only too familiar with these issues.

In 2018, Tsai Ming-Liang was invited by the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area Administration to make this film, his eighth in the "Walker" series. In the constant passage of time, the Zen-like footsteps of the Walker has finally allowed us to see the Pacific Ocean, the open sky, the seagulls, the black sand, an eel catching settlement that arose in the cold winter rain, the twisting branches of the lintou trees, flotsam piled up like mountains, and a newly constructed cement house, which seems to offer a temporary place of rest for the Walker. "Sand" premiered together with the opening of the Zhuangwei Dune Visitor Center.

Taiwanese romance film.

Taiwanese horror film. A ghost walking along the roadside trails a movie star home and causes various problems for her both on and off set.

Ashit, young screenwriter struggles to finish his scripts under the pressure to meet the deadline while the characters he creates in the story disturbed him and joked around. Producer keeps denying his scripts, suggesting awful ideas and encouraging him steal ideas from others. Ashit feels frustrated and depressed after compromising himself to the producer's demands. His dream of being a screenwriter is drifting away.

The winters in Northern China could become rather bitter and harsh especially if one must endure it alone. Hoping to spend his last winter in solitude, a timid man must declare his love for his sweetheart before her family forces her to be married off.

The One Legged Fiend wreaks havoc throughout the central plains of China. Two young martial artists are trained in various forms of combat to bring the Peg Leg fighter to justice.

A disgraced showgirl turned gambling addict is trapped in a sinister hospice where she uncovers horrifying events and faces the ultimate price for the past mistakes that haunt her as a mother.

Moon dreams of an expedition to Antarctica with her true love. When Adley, in a penguin costume, lands in her sight, she knows immediately he is the one. But Adley thinks she is crazy?!

Taiwanese fantasy / horror.

Taiwanese historical drama.

Ren is the owner of a second-hand electric appliance store, likes to watch erotic photos in his unexciting and lonesome life. Until one day, his life changed by an unidentified CloudTV. He crushed on a girl who seemed to be threatened by violence, could the crowarded he make it to rescue the girl?

Taiwanese movie

Although Jay and his boyfriend Henry have been together for years, Jay has yet to tell his friends and family about his relationship.

During a fever, Tateo, the male protagonist believes he is dying and has the hallucination that his beautiful wife, Reiko (Tamaki Katori), the daughter of a wealthy family, is having an affair w/ another man. He then tells her an ancient Chinese story: the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wanted to test the faithfulness of his wife, so he faked his own death; the wife was grief-stricken and went into mourning. While funeral arrangements were in progress, a handsome young man came to call on Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi's wife soon fell into love w/ the young man and decided to marry hi. However, the young man fell ill; his servant said that the only medicine to cure him is human brain. Zhuangzi's wife eventually decided to break his husband's coffin and take his brain. However the young man turns out be Zhuangzi in disguise.

The "Lost Generation" is an obsolete term against the Land of the Brave, in which the younger generation awakens to the fact that their community and their nation are in need of their dedication for brighter prospects. Permeated with enchanting music and campus folk songs, the film will surely animate lofty sentiments of movie-goers.

As Jun waits leisurely to enlist in the army, everything starts to go sloppy after two lines appear on his girlfriend’s pregnancy test. Jun, who lost his father as a child, is at a loss because of his sudden “fatherhood”. Meanwhile, his mother Jia-ling gives Jun a golden watch, a relic from his father. Looking at the oldfashioned watch, Jun wonders if he can become a reliable man.

Love turns into heartache as a young man worries about the insanity that runs in his family and whether his baby will be affected by it.

Jin-Hua and Jin-Tien are twin sisters. Quiet and shy Jin-tien is an animal trainer at an aquarium. When her sister suddenly goes missing, Jin-tien must stand for her in a magic show. While inside the box, she is confronted with the childhood Jin-tien, Jin-hua and their mother. A very lyrical film about memories of loved ones.

Bong-tshio is your ordinary countryside grandma, raising four kids in an impoverished environment; however, the kids that grew up and started their own families do not respect her, fostering her in turns for one month, while bargaining with each other about the number of days in different months. But the optimistic Bong-tshio always just laughed it off. Until one day, she got lost and wandered into a police station, and then accidentally won the top prize of the lottery. Her children began to look for her desperately, rushing back to their old place in the countryside, and kicked off a ridiculous competition of filial piety.

The Family decided to reunite for one last time before the daughter moves away overseas for work. But the father unexpectedly brings his new partner along to the party.

Her First Joss Stick is a narrative short film that combines action-inflected comedy with an atypical female coming-of-age story rooted in local ritual culture. Set on Lunar New Year’s Eve, the film follows A-Feng, a retired sprinter participating in the fiercely competitive first joss stick ritual at her local temple. Having become a full-time housewife, she channels her long-suppressed desire for speed and competition into the bodily act of sprinting toward the sacred, transforming the ritual into a site of personal assertion.

'Peng! Snowman' is a feature length documentary about a farmer's son who became one of the worldwide best martial artists. Just forget what you know about martial arts master. Peng will redefine the term: He's a funny, crazy genius! At the age of 60, Peng Wu-Chi was willing to share his incredible story for the first and last time - before he disappeared.

A young scholar is asked by a woman ghost to bring her back to the world where she wants to take her revenge on her killers.

Action-war from Taiwan.

Man-Li always lives in the normal track as everybody considers. After graduating from school to society, she keeps each job with caution and fear. Unless she finds a new job, she won’t quit the current one easily. This time is quite different. She resigned and had no idea what to do next. She just thought to make a change of her lifestyle. However, what will it look like? She doesn’t know either. Her boyfriend proposed the thought of getting married. She doesn’t feel like working but it doesn’t necessarily mean that she has to choose marriage. All of this is because of the space she longs for. On the contrary, she doesn’t know what to do. Only she can do is in a daze!Waves kept patting the seashore of the night dream……a feeling was gradually brewed, swelled, unlimitedly developed and grew in strength! What does the voice of waves in the dream draw on earth?

To connect with her grandson online, a grandma hires a troubled youth for gaming lessons, forming an unlikely bond that changes them both.

The film revolves around the story of two girls, Summer and Yuki, who fall in love with each other. It explores the themes of romance, life, and youth. It is an independent film and has been praised for its portrayal of a lesbian romance.

The film is about the life of a family of seven. Ah Nan is a senior university student, he loves his classmate Dan Niu, a beautiful girl who comes back from Canada. When Dan Niu learns Ah Nan's parents are drunkards and gamblers and his brothers are thieves and blockheads, they break up. After losing his love, Ah Nan drops out. Phoebe, a friend of Ah Nan, her parents die in a plane crash, but she doesn't give up her hope for life. Ah Nan is influenced by Phoebe and is determined to live hard and change the situation. The whole family is influenced by his spirit, they open a boarding house.

Rich man Xu Huitang got close to his special nurse Fang Feili, which caused a misunderstanding with his wife and left for the United States with their daughter.

Taiwanese drama.