Discoveries from Taiwan World Cinema

Puppeteer Chen Hsi-huang establishes his own troupe and moves out from under the shadow of his father, the legendary Li Tien-lu.

THE REVENGE OF THE TWO EXORCISTS (1975) is another rarity; this one from Lai Sheng Ying, a cinematographer turned director. Based on a Chinese folk tale, according to the article, all the stars are new faces and a portion of the film was shot in Japan.

One hot afternoon in nowhere, there is one solitary and empty road. A police is spying on a girl who owns a small store on this lonely road. He looks for any clues on her like a hound in nature. however, he is not the only hunter on this road.

Kuo-lun's family returns home for the funeral of his grandmother, who was killed in a car accident. Having not spoken with his family in a long time, Kuo-lun comes home as a trans woman. Then, he finds out the person who killed his grandmother was his first love. Besides facing his father, who is unwilling to accept him, he also has to deal with financial entanglements between relatives and their complicated past. Yet, he still wants to see his grandmother one last time.

Jie, a local gangster, wants to leave his hometown to become a singer in the big city therefore he has tackle the problems he tends to ignore in his life. However, one's dream doesn't always come true.

Taiwanese drama film.

Fourteen-year-old Yao is sick of his worn-out shoes, which his father never replace for being too deep in debt. One day, after a confrontation with debt collectors, his father suddenly buys him a pair of expensive sneakers. Little did Yao know, this is the start of a painful tragedy.

This film follows the lives of undocumented Vietnamese workers in Taiwan doing odd jobs to survive, after having been forced to flee their employers due to harsh working conditions and lack of medical care. How will living this way for more than a decade shape their lives?

Rare sword fighting martial arts film from Taiwan.

Two girls in the bloom of youth meet at a vocational training program. Afterwards, their lives move in completely different directions.

Dajun still lives with his father, who dates and plans to marry a ditsy starlet. The boy's mother is a flight stewardess, hence often away, and so Dajun's chubby cousin Yifen is often hired in as a child-minder. The relationship between Dajun and Yifen is, to say the least, abrasive, and Yifen bitterly resents being imposed on--especially when it seems that her own family is keen to get rid of her.

Taiwanese romantic comedy.

Chinese herbal medicines have a long and venerated history. We follow the forays of a "barefoot doctor" to the mountains to collect herbs in central Taiwan, and observe his religious practices to cure his patients using these herbal medicines as well as summoning spiritual forces. This film reveals the cultural and religious context of Chinese medicines—the intertwined dimensions of physical and spiritual energy that relate to human fate.

On the surface, Min is a man who lives a dream life. He has great looks, a job he is passionate about at the Taipei wild bird conservatory and a loving wife. However, the expert of the Black-winged Stilt harbours dark storms within. There is daily growing tension between him and his wife over family planning. He and his brother, who were once in good terms, have been cold-shouldering each other for years. Last is the past he left behind to soar to where he is. All tension is released and mayhem unleashed when a crisis brings him back to his old home Yun-Ling, the town he came from. Meanwhile, oblivious to the life of the man who studies them, the migratory Stilts continue their annual ritual. Hidden with their feathery actions is a message of love waiting for Min and his family to uncover.

The love bug strikes two young sisters at about the same time. Since the two sisters happen to be in love with the same person, chaos and confusion is brought into their once serene home.

Taiwanese movie

Taiwanese movie

The film explores Lin Hai-yin’s unique perspective of having “two homelands,” narrated by her daughter Julie Chang. It highlights her life, work as an editor, and her role in overcoming censorship. Lin Hai-yin’s novels, known for their inclusiveness, remain a shared memory for cross-strait readers. She was a friend to writers and a courageous mother, nurturing Taiwanese literature post-war. As editor of the United Daily News, she supported writers like Lin Hwai-min and founded the Belles-Lettres Publishing House. Her living room was a literary hub, and she is fondly remembered as “Ms. Lin Hai-yin.” Her novel Memories of Peking: South Side Stories was published in 1960.

One night, Deng's favorite live streamer Annie announces she would quit the streaming. At the same moment, the Internet is mysteriously disconnected around the world. To see Annie again, Deng starts his journey searching for signals in the dark city.

High school student Li Chih-hui worships martial arts movie star “Long” and dreams of becoming a kung fu master so he can defend himself from bullies. When classmate Chien Li-hua shows concern for the bullied Chih-hui, he begins to develop feelings for her. And when he finds out Li-hua is into divination and wants to become a spirit medium, Chih-hui pens a script entitled “Long and the Magic Princess” and invites her to star in it, but the bullies show up and knock Chih-hui unconscious. When he wakes up, however, Chih-hui suddenly declares that Long’s spirit now possesses his body.

Chia-wen and Hsiao-fen are childhood friends. Chia-wen is the son of a rich landlord and Hsiao-fen is the daughter of a poor couple who works on the rich lanlord's land. Even as children Chia-wen and Hsiao-fen love each other deeply. Chia-wen is sent to school in the city. After graduation Chia-wen returns to the countryside and plans to make his childhood friend Hsiao-fen his wife. Chia-wen's father disapproves of the marriage between Chia-wen and Hsiao-fen and disowns Chia-wen. With the disapproval of their marriage, Chia-wen takes Hsiao-fen and they run away together. Unmarried, Chia-wen and Hsiao-fen live together and struggle to make a living.

This rare swordplay team with top kung fu starlet Polly Shang Kwan and Pai Ying are on a mission to escort an official across a particularly treacherous and dangerous valley.

Taiwanese movie

A great earthquake took away Jiayun’s older brother, Jiahong. The family survived and went through the pain, but because of the dementia of her mother, Pei Rong, her father, Zhenyuan, was in pain while taking care of Pei Rong. The family was in the lost memory Facing the same wound, but falling in love but far away...

5 years old Yang spends an afternoon with his mother on a shopping trip. When he throws a tantrum after feeling neglected, she decides to punish him by walking away. A seemingly harmless punishment eventually becomes a pivotal childhood experience for Yang that will forever change him.

In the early 1980s, hundreds of the so-called female revenging/exploitation films were produced in Taiwan. The 2020 version was based on the old genre to recreate a fantasy of the bloody revenge. The film is one of Su Hui-Yu’s “Re-shooting” series, which re-visits historical sources in Taiwan during the old days around the 1970s-1980s while the country was under martial law governance.

The financial problems of a Jewish community are a nightmare for their leader, Rabbi Aaron. Cornered and overwhelmed, Aaron tries a last resort: embark on a trip to the Far East to get donations.

Ad director Wan Ting-fang, with little time left to live, receives an unusual offer from underworld emissaries: film an adult movie for ghostly audiences, and he’ll gain more time on earth. Short on resources, he enlists his mother-in-law Hsiao-fang, whose unexpected enthusiasm reignites his creative spirit. But when their forbidden project catches the City God’s attention, Ting-fang's final deadline draws near.

After having their son, a young couple divorces, with the child remaining with the father. The two endure poverty because the father has trouble finding and keeping jobs. Story mainly focuses on the father-son relationship and difficulties of being a single parent.

Embarrassed by her un-American look, a young girl betrays her younger sister during their first Sunday at a Chinese-American church.

Taiwan has 20 million inhabitants, and 12,5 million motorbikes. My 747 is the directors personal story, about his motorbike and their life together over the last eight years.

Escaping school bullies in Jerusalem, reconnecting with Dad in Indonesia, a missing baby at a drag show in Taiwan. All around the world, the language of telling lies and keeping secrets is common practice, but sometimes people's reasons for doing so may surprise you.

A-Tek is on a quest to find his favorite metal band, Chthonic, and persuade them to play a benefit protest concert in his southern Taiwan hometown. Can music save a Taiwanese homeowner from a Chinese land grab? He sure hopes so.

Chia Ling aka Judy Lee (SHAOLIN INVINCIBLES, QUEEN BOXER) stars as a woman summoned by a retired general to sing and play the lute for him, but as she performs, he attempts to assault her and in the process murders her. The general and his assistant throw her body and lute into a fire, but Master Ku, a scholar who was watching her father, finds the burnt shell of the lute which now contains her ghost. Together they will now try and bring the general and his henchmen to justice.

During the transaction of weapons with another gang, Hong Kong triad boss Lu Gang was sold out by his henchmen Shui-Jin and Da-Ji, who work with Lord Gu and Japanese killer team and take Lu Gang’s life on the scene. The weapons and drugs worth 20 million US dollars are grasped with nothing left. So the mafia from Italy orders to hunt the two down. The police immediately start with investigation after learning the news…

《想念》描述一位住院的老頭子（茂伯飾），因為與他同病房的小女孩（林彥禎飾）無法跟同學去旅行，老頭子索性帶著小女孩翹院出去玩的故事。這部片從台北開始拍攝，一路經過了桃園、新竹、苗栗，一直拍到台中，茂伯笑說自己是「拚了老命」來完成這趟旅程的拍攝。開拍的第一天，為了呈現最真實的感受，他不惜在產業道路上，徒手推著拋錨的小貨車上山，片中他還揹著小女孩走山路，替牛接生、擠牛奶，並且拍攝跟流氓打架救小女孩的戲碼。劇組人馬為了這一老一小荒腔走板的旅程，每天趕路拍攝，不僅經歷屢創紀錄的炙熱高溫，同時也遭遇了「五」個颱風。不知道是不是離開台北的關係，這趟路下來，不僅他倆玩到了，劇組大夥也玩得很開心。 每個人的成長過程中都有一些印象深刻的經歷，不管大或小，對自己來說都是一件畢生難忘的回憶。初次拍攝自己小時候的回憶故事，非常感謝這麼多業界的好朋友前來支持，更感謝製作人陳振德和瞿友寧導演的大力幫忙完成我的夢想，希望這部片能勾起更多觀眾心中難忘的想念故事。

Sensing a rebellion is brewing in the small town of Lung Wei Village, the Manchu warlords command the village magistrate to hunt down the rebels. He hires four warriors, all of them expert martial artists, to stop the rebellion. The stakes are high: If they don't succeed, the rebels may change the course of Chinese history.

“Stone and River... They used to be together for the past lives. This life, they haven’t recognized each other yet.” Today, Stone goes spelunking in Shoushan with River, surrounded by the beautiful karst and lovely animals. When they sit in nature, they encounter the most beautiful moment. However, River is afraid that Stone might leave her one day...

A doctor marries his patient without his parents' approval. His parents trick him into marrying a girl of their choice. Meanwhile, his first wife gives birth to a baby girl and waits for his return.

The Xining Public Housing complex in Taipei, built in 1983, houses more than 1,000 residents. Tsai Ming-liang filmed his first television drama and his feature The Hole (1998) here. Tsai Ming-liang quietly observes the complex, set to be demolished soon, and the daily lives of its people.

An adventure / horror story.

Desperately requesting help and money for his ailing mother, little Erhfutzu receives help from Miss Yun and her company that then moves on. Finding his mother murdered soon thereafter, we cut to Erhfutzu as an adult (Steve Chan), now a swordsman known as Scabbed Tiger and out to revenge the death of his mother. Seeking someone with a particular piece of jade, he finds the one and promptly executes his plan. Bumping into the servant and daughter (Yeung Mung-Wa) of Miss Yun later on, she is grieving the death of her father and as it turns out, it's the victim of Erhfutzu's. Realizing his mistake, he tries to set things as right as possible by going after the right man for his sake and for the sake of Miss Yun's daughter. All while keeping the truth of his actions inside...

The Master of Manchuria's most renowned school of kung-fu is slaughtered when he resists the invading Japanese. His eldest son is beaten so badly he becomes mentally retarded. The second son, Lui, surrenders and joins the army - much to the derision of the villagers. The last son disappears. When a masked man begins appearing and making trouble at the Japanese army bases, Lui is ordered to find and kill him. He almost succeeds, but at the last moment discovers the masked man's secret...

Shot for Taiwan LGBT Pride 2012. After being with his boyfriend of 4 years, 8 months and 10 days, Andy is ready to take the next step in their relationship. Right when he is about to ask, Andy's parents walk into that very same restaurant...

The documentary takes us on a journey to Sinje`s hometown of Alor Setar where she grew up with a strong sense of freedom in nature that shaped her into a fearless and positive person. Sinje reflects on the importance of childhood freedom and how it impacts character and outlook on life. Sinje shares her experiences of living fearlessly and embracing her passions as a modern working mother of three. Through her story, we explore the joys and challenges of motherhood, finding the balance between career and family, and prioritising self-care.

Gui Kingdom is in crisis: the Demon Society has long desired the Kingdom’s treasured Dragon and Phoenix swords. Entrusted with the task to protect the sword and princess, Jhuge-Shiro (Shiro) rises to fight against the Demon Society but must also deal with the vengeful Zhen Ping (Ping).

The film depicts how the young Yue Fei learned martial arts, got his mighty weapon, and romanced his wife. Later he entered the national contest of martial arts, and had to fight his way out of a legion of challengers.

Ching's grandpa passed away. Though her grandma insists on staying at home for the funeral, the girl tries to take her away in her own way.