Discoveries from Taiwan World Cinema

As the boy group SPARK celebrates its 10th anniversary, superfan Xi finally achieves her dream of joining their management team.

Frances and Rin flee to an abandoned restroom, with Rin hurriedly trying to wash her hands; they are drug dealers struggling to survive. Unfortunately, they encountered a violent man. Rin stabbed the man to death to protect Frances, and the two had no choice but to run away…

This early Taiwanese Wuxia film is a classic genre tale of a revenge-seeking swordswoman (Cheung Ching-ching).

Brother Vincent is a successful young Christian man. He seems to have everything going for him with a deep involvement in church, a gorgeous young fiancé, and a flashy new car at his disposal. Unknown to him, his mom Dufie is involved with spirits from the dark underworld and she has promised to deliver them her son's soul. However, penetrating Vincent's faith and succeeding with her evil deeds turns out to be much harder than she thought. It seems as though the only way to get to Vincent is to make him break up with his fiancé and get him involved with an evil spirit in human shape. With her son dating the evil but attractive Natasha, will he fall to Dufie and her spirit companions? His father and the local priest bravely put up a fight to save his soul.

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.

The life of seventeen-year-old Xuan is anything but ordinary: She lives and works with her mother and sister in a recycling center surrounded by things others have thrown away. One day, at the suggestion of a boy she likes, she tries to escape into the life of a normal teenage girl.

Taiwanese comedy.

A rookie food delivery rider accepts a legendary ghost order for a small bonus—only to be trapped in a terrifying loop deep in the haunted mountains.

The beautiful Shan Shan has two men who loves her, the arrogant young Lung Fong and the humble Tze Wei, but for the luck of Tze Wei, Shan Shan loves him, and arouses the wrath of Fong, who ends up getting involved with the beautiful, malicious and ill-loved Meng Li, who had already taken an out of Tze Wei, and sees in Fong a chance to get well, only he wanted it as a hobby, because his will is to marry Shan Shan. Meng Li can not bear to lose two men to Shan Shan, she sends some henchmen to kidnap her, now it's up to Tze Wei to save her.

The film peers through the conditions of different social groups and their accusation, compromization, and pondering over their lives from the perspective of a taxi driver Huang and presents different issues in his daily family life; describing the disturbance from his wife’s point of view about the money and the marriage and all the absurd but real situation like how she turned to friend and god when facing difficulties; depicting his daughter’s troubles from the school, her boyfriend, her pregnancy and how she dealt with them in a seemingly mature but actually naive way. The driver, his wife, and his daughter held their own secrets until he came across a robbery, smashing the peaceful illusion of his family and tempting the improper thought inside him.

Gay high school couple - Ivan, a well-behaved local Taiwanese, and Eric, a rebellious international student from the US, take a road trip down the most dangerous highway in Taiwan. Their trip is cut short when Eric reveals that he must return home after graduation, forcing Ivan to confront his darkest demons.

A young man is pulled into crime and then murder. He falls in love with a beautiful young prostitute who sells herself to a brothel to pay off his debts. When the young man tries to buy her contract from the brothel owner, he kills one of the bosses' thugs in a fight. A crime syndicate that the young man willingly affiliated himself with failed. Now on the run from both criminals and the police, the star-crossed lovers flee through Taiwan. A powerful morality tale, the film exposes the dangers of the underworld economy, and the ubiquity of crime and violence on the island.

Tsai Ming-liang's new film, Back Home, depicts Anong Houngheuangsy and the daily life of his home village in Laos. We witness buildings in varying states of habitation and disrepair, farm animals, rice fields, religious sites, domestic scenes, a sun-dappled food market, and a dog adorably trying (and failing) to escape a carnival ride.

On the Sunday after Mother’s Day in 1988, SHEN Yuan was alone at home and received a family letter from the other side that had been blocked for 40 years. The letter revealed that her mother had passed away long ago and that she had eagerly anticipated Yuanmei’s return every day. SHEN Yuan closed the curtains, pulled out a camphor wood box, and retrieved pieces of cheongsams she recalled occasionally. Singing, dancing, and chatting with her mother in spirit, she experienced moments of sadness and laughter.

Yen, who’s just got out of a relationship, is about to enter a new chapter of life. Yet with the reappearance of Chieh, he realizes that loneliness may have never left at all.

A fascinating documentary, shot in the mountainous north of Burma. No filmmaker is welcome there, because, against the background of a civil war, the jade miners enter the deserted mines illegally. With the aid of filming locals, however, Midi Z was able to compile this portrait. Getting rich quick turns out to be hard and risky work Jade has always been a valuable commodity in Asia. In the mountains in the north of Burma there are valuable deposits of jade. The area forms part of Kachin State, inhabited by many ethnic groups which found themselves embroiled in the Civil War in 2010 with the Burmese government. Jade mining was halted because of the conflict. Thousands of workers, however, went to the war zone in order to dig for illegal jade. It turned the region into a no-go area and the filmmaker Midi Z, who had so far made feature films in Burma, saw no opportunity to go and film there. It was far too dangerous. © iffr.com

Taiwanese horror film.

A young man from Hong Kong wakes up. He finds his home transformed into a train car. He feels like he is still dreaming. But the woman who speaks Mandarin said this was not his dream.

A Taiwan movie about first love.

In the 1970s, Taiwan's first grand cabaret, The Sapphire, opened in Kaohsiung, igniting a golden decade of live entertainment. Beneath its dazzling lights, the nation's tensions and censorship faded in nights of glitz and song.Stars like Teresa Teng, Fei Yu-ching and Fong Fei-fei graced. its stage, where glamour met gambling, drugs, and danger.Half a century later, The Sapphire is resurrected—through AI and music—to relive its untamed brilliance.

After the sudden death of his wife, Guan discovers her unfinished novel—a tale intertwining the endangered clouded leopard and the Rukai tribe’s sacred origin myth, which tells of their descent from the elusive animal. Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes—a maze of the subconscious, mist-shrouded forests, ancient tree hollows, and symbolic inner landscapes.

In the middle of the strait between Kinmen and Xiamen, China, there are patches of sea filled with floating styrofoam and endless sand pilfering across the border. Huge business opportunities, and even greater land reclamations have scarred the beauty of the original rural landscapes for the sake of “ The Chinese Dream"—a dream that places economic achievements above all else.

Taiwanese movie

Taiwanese romance film.

Although blind, the sharp hearing swordsman is still twice as fast as his foes; together with his trusty blade he dispatches an array of swordsmen an assassin’s in this great Taiwanese swordplay film.

An unemployed son visits his mother who lives alone. Having been away from home for a while, a sense of distance and alienation is all that is left between them. Nevertheless, they keep saying, ‘I’m fine’, to each other as neither wants to worry the other.

This movie tells the story of a pair of sisters who have been separated since childhood and meet as strangers many years later. After getting along day and night, their love gradually develops into a couple relationship, but at the end they find an unusual relationship with each other... Through this film, we want to explore where the moral bottom line of society is, especially when we touch on themes of gays and taboo love, and reflect on the right and wrong of these more extreme relationships. And the role of sister represents the public who feel that this relationship is "wrong" according to social ethics and moral standards. The younger sister represents the "selfish" self in the love relationship. After all, it is "beautiful" to be with the person you love the most and have each other. There is nothing wrong with loving each other. The only thing wrong is that they are sisters. (Google Translate)

Taiwanese movie

Conflicts reach their boiling point during a mass protest. Law enforcement stationed at these demonstrations are made to work overtime; long hours away from their families have since become the norm. Police sergeant Ah-Wen, who is thrust into the heart of these clashes, struggles to find a balance between his already precarious marriage, and the high pressure and strenuous conditions of his working environment.

Gofer, Mo and Pengolin, collectively known as the Three Rats, are looking for a two part treasure map and will kill anyone who gets in their way. A young girl named Shao Wa seeks to avenge the murder of her father. In order to defeat the Rats, she must learn the eight strikes of the Wild Cat from an old Kung Fu Master, while trying to evade his amorous assistant, Lee Ta Fa.

A film by Lee Hsing

Qing-han, an ordinary and introverted high school student, has a secret ability: by squinting, he can see “scores” above people’s heads based on appearance, academics, and social skills. He records these scores in a notebook, yet still fails to win over his crush, the school beauty Ming-zhen. When the notebook falls into the hands of Chun-xi, a struggling student secretly in love with top student Zi-xue, she threatens to expose Qing-han unless he helps improve her scores. After his guidance, Chun-xi confesses successfully—only to fall into Zi-xue’s trap and end up in deep trouble. Meanwhile, the newly single Ming-zhen grows closer to Qing-han, and Zi-xue’s true nature emerges. Qing-han hesitates between Ming-zhen and Chun-xi because he is obsessed with academic scores. He longs to be close to others but doesn’t have the courage to open his heart. How should Qing-han find his own happiness?

To escape an arranged marriage, a young lord (Paul Chang Chung) flees to the hidden mountains of Sichuan to study martial arts from one of the world's greatest fighters. When his master is killed, the young warrior sets out to avenge his death, unaware that he's walking into a deadly battle with the woman (Bik Wan Lo) he left at the altar. The young lord is about to experience the true meaning of "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

In the Taiwanese countryside, a high school senior, Shuan, is passionate about playing guitar. One summer day, his parents argue heatedly about money. Pretending to attend the study group, Shuan escaped his household chores and went to the city to hang out with his bandmates. Later that day, a typhoon hit, bringing strong winds and heavy rain. Meanwhile, Shuan’s mother had not yet returned home, and his young sister was nowhere to be found.

Lin, a young boy bullied in school. Classmates accuse Lin's father of being a serial killer since he caused a hit-and-run accident several years ago. Lin turned to meat pie peddler who used to be a gangster. Lin stole his mother's money and asked the peddler to kill four of his classmates. But the peddler didn't take revenge for Lin; he ran away. Because of this, Lin transfers to a new school, a transformed person. From the scrawny boy bullied around, he has become the ring leader of a gang of bullies.

A conservative Taiwanese mother and a British gay man meet to discuss his involvement in her son’s life and the finer details of her son’s death.

The girl spots a snow globe prize at a pinball arcade but spends all her allowance without winning the snow globe. The next day, she experiences the Taoist festival and reunites with her long-absent father. This temporarily reunited family spends a surreal and magical evening during the festival feast.

The heartbroken Chloe made a promise to kill off every last hypocritical scumbag in the world. Today, Chloe meets with Wei in a laundromat, a bloody cleansing ritual thus begins…

Grandma Peach lives alone, listening to the same radio program every day. One day, she tries the host’s secret for rejuvenation. Unexpectedly, magic happens. She becomes young again and meets a college boy. The chemistry between them bring them together but also tears them apart.

Recording a 24-hour period throughout every country in the world, we explore a greater diversity of perspectives than ever seen before on screen. We follow characters and events that evolve throughout the day, interspersed with expansive global montages that explore the progression of life from birth, to death, to birth again. In the end, despite unprecedented challenges and tragedies throughout the world, we are reminded that every day we are alive there is hope and a choice to see a better future together. Founded in 2008, it set out to explore our planet's identity and challenges in an attempt to answer the question: Who are we?

Raised in Japan, Yukiko’s education was made possible by a Taiwanese benefactor. As Expo ’70 nears, she becomes a hostess, determined to find her long-lost benefactor. Her search takes her across Osaka, Kobe, Nara, and Hokkaido, but every lead vanishes as quickly as it appears. Set against the 1970 Osaka Expo, this film stars Taiwanese-Japanese singer Judy ONGG, seamlessly blending music, dance, and documentary elements.

The story of Li Zhengsen, who was orphaned at a young age and was brought up by his grandmother, a famous Peking Opera actress, and his grandfather, a master of traditional Chinese painting.

Made as Taiwan’s economy took off in the 1960s, Early Train from Taipei is a classic country-to-city melodrama of development. To save her bankrupt rural family, Xiulan takes the train to Taipei to earn money. Boyfriend Huotu is horrified to find she has been tricked into becoming a dancer in a nightclub when he visits, and tries to persuade her to leave the next morning on the early train from Taipei. Tragedy piles upon tragedy in this cautionary tale, which touched a nerve with audiences and inspired a raft of sequels.

In an intimate and exciting journey to the root, the film follows a family based in Okinawa, Japan, that visits Taiwan to rediscover their family origins.

Taiwanese drama.

A middle-aged man about to be divorced stops by home to pick up his golf bag. He leaves with the key. A typhoon arrives and blows torrential rain through the windows he has left open.

A sudden blackout spreads through the community, and as rumors circulate among the residents, a power outage somehow becomes a harbinger of war. Amidst the panic and fleeing crowds, Liu reacts very differently — he simply wants to keep his fish alive. The fish, however, isn't just any fish; it speaks. On this strange night, with an arrogant fish in tow, Liu embarks on a journey to explore the possibility of mutual understanding.

hong kong romance

Since deciding to give up on resuscitating his estranged father, Cheng Yi hasn't been able to sleep properly. The funeral rituals seem like a dream, so real yet so elusive. During this period, Cheng Yi's daughter noticed his gradual decline and fatigue to some extent. She knew how much Cheng Yi longed for Gung Chin to come into his dream, and to tell him whether he made the right decision or not.