Discoveries from Taiwan World Cinema

Inside every taxi driver’s heart, there is a wild cowboy. Da-wei doesn’t want to be confined at home during the pandemic, so he tries every possible way to get back on the road with his taxi. Can he eventually overcome all the obstacles to finish this knightly trip that no one witnesses?

In a small village devastated by a past storm, an elderly woman named Tae lives alone selling grilled dumplings. Her life follows a quiet, repetitive routine, as if time itself has come to a standstill. One night, Tae discovers a strange creature in the mountains and brings it home, naming it Haru. Haru eats only the dumplings Tae makes by hand. Awkward yet gentle, Haru’s presence gives Tae a renewed sense of purpose. However, the village cannot accept what it does not understand. Rumors of a monster called “UWAN” spread, and fear takes hold. Haru is branded a harbinger of disaster, while Tae is deemed mentally unstable and forcibly hospitalized. Caught between rigid institutions and superstition, Tae struggles to protect Haru. Finally, she stages a grand fake funeral, allowing Haru to escape the village’s fear. As another storm approaches, Tae realizes that love is not about possession, but about letting go.

Khun-sin is like a solitary island, and those who are struggling in water. Faced with the missing husband who set sail to the seas, Yue’s life is just like swept by the current as well, whereas her little Ren is looking for the water striders. What he wonders is why they can live safely in water without sinking.

This is a story about a girl searching for her true self. Lele dreams of becoming a ballet dancer, yet she struggles to master an elegant smile. “Come on, smile” echoes in the studio, effortless for others but not her. Day after day, she repeats the steps, seeking the meaning of dance. With her friend May by her side, they return to the stage. An unexpected moment shatters the routine. In the darkness, Lele finds her answer.

One of "2020 Taiwanese presidential election" short film series by Next Film (一丁目), a short-lived streaming platform by Next Digital (壹傳媒).

Taiwanese comedy.

The story depicts a young man who is banished for questioning the state machinery and embarks on an unknown adventure in order to protect his love.

A young boy enters the Shaolin Temple and undergoes rigorous training in traditional martial arts. The film focuses on discipline, endurance, and classical Shaolin forms as the child monk learns the fundamentals of kung fu. This is a 1972 Taiwanese production by Hwa Shing Film Co. and is not related to the similarly titled 1984 Hong Kong film.

2013／HD／Color／52min／

A Taiwanese language film.

Nineteen-year-old Yi-Xin has been raising her younger brother Chen alone. One day, her father’s former mistress leaves a young girl named Xin-Fang in her care. As the days pass, the three begin to form a bond—one that is tender, fragile, and far more complicated than Yi-Xin expected.

Taiwanese language drama film.

Taiwanese romantic comedy.

Brother Wang and Brother Liu Pass Five Difficult Traps

After a sudden downpour in the park, caregiver Shelly accidentally wheels home the wrong person — only to find she has brought back a grumpy, uncommunicative grandpa instead of her client. As she scrambles to switch them back, the grandpa refuses to go home.

While working in a trauma unit, a social worker investigates mysterious deaths connected to supernatural phenomena and forbidden rituals.

Artists contributing to the 1966 Modern Poetry Exhibition included HUANG Hua-cheng, LONG Sih-liang, HUANG Yong-song, and CHANG Chao-tang; each artist chose their favorite modern poems and transformed them into imagery. This film is a time capsule capturing some of the exhibits, as well as the young artists.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Dad's passing. Chongyu, Mom, and his sister drove from Kaohsiung to the countryside in Tainan to visit his grave. Along the way, the GPS suddenly urged, "Turn right, turn right," and Mom immediately turned the car onto a small road off the highway. Suddenly, a vast field appeared before them, leaving Chongyu and his family quite puzzled. No matter how they tried, they couldn't find a way out. Should they turn back or keep going forward? While stuck in the car, it seemed like all three of them had something they wanted to say....

Combining Riverbed’s three award-winning 360VR films (All That Remains, Over the Rainbow, and A Simple Silence) into a single experience, the Just for You Trilogy immerses the audience in a surreal meditation on memory, death, and desire.

The story begins with a funeral in high school and ends with a wedding in adulthood, framing a journey from youthful grief to mature rebirth.

Taiwanese movie

Friday night, a basketball court, ice cream, cooties, two girls and a boy. What's the worst that could happen?

Hilly is a 10-year-old silent Taiwanese girl. Nobody cares about her depression and the pressure she suffers. Hilly hates that she always oppresses herself, and also hates the world controlled by adults. What does Hilly really want to speak to the adults?

This sociological drama focuses on a construction worker’s family who cannot afford a house of their own, even though the head of the family builds houses.

A newly homeless family, with a sacrificed pig, in a city longing for rain: with compassion and prayer, they try to survive.

Up in the mountains in the darkness of the night, a young logger who illegally cuts down Formosan cypress trees meets a middle-aged solo trekker who broke his leg after falling off a cliff. The trekker offers the young man ten times the price of a Formosan cypress to carry him down the mountain. Will the deal help the trekker survive? Will the logger get his reward? The fates of two souls who trek alone intertwine briefly.

Vivi is an ambitious tech executive who once believed marriage and motherhood had no place in her life. Shu, born into privilege, is a gentle but drifting lawyer who dreams of a slower, unburdened existence. The two first met in a high school band and, years later, reunite, marry, and choose to bring new life into the world. Confined to a delivery room and an extended period of waiting, the couple are forced into difficult honesty. What begins as an intimate ordeal gradually expands into a pressure cooker of family drama, where unspoken expectations and old wounds refuse to stay contained. The arrival of family members and a former lover brings long-suppressed tensions to the surface. Over the course of 36 hours, before the child is born, the marriage is pushed to a breaking point—opening the possibility of change, responsibility, and renewal—at a moment when life and death feel perilously near, and yet nothing is certain.

The Master of the No Clan School swears revenge after he is crippled illegally in a tournament by a rep from the Iron Fist School run by the Triads. His trained children enter the tournament years later to bring the Iron Fist School to justice.

A short, silent animated film about a father and son, both astronauts.

After beginning his transgender journey at age 18, Tyler has become a young man who will no longer be mistaken for a woman. Having finally achieved harmony between mind and body, can the pain Tyler felt from his earlier gender identity struggles be cured? Tyler’s family also must come to terms with their child as he begins a new life as a son, brother, and boyfriend.

Tzung-Yu works for a private establishment providing some special services. An illegal job as it is, it becomes his daily life. Being stuck in the repetitive routine, Tzung-Yu is longing for change.

The film is based on the Founder of Causeway Bay Books - LAM Wing-kee’s experience after he was temporarily released back to Hong Kong after 8 months of detention in Mainland China. LAM was demanded by the authorities to retrieve his computer in the bookstore in Hong Kong, alongside with the information of his customers. Only when he found out that his colleague handed over to him the wrong computer, should he start to think about possibilities besides submitting to authorities from Mainland China. The film re-enacts the events happened in the two days he was allowed to return to Hong Kong and explores LAM’s decision to defy, and refuse to leave his homeland.

In northern India's Dehradun, an all-women police unit tackles troubled marriages with unexpected wisdom and authority. Inside the bustling station, couples confront domestic turmoil while the officers balance tough love with surprising moments of humour.

KING Shih-chieh plays A, who has no clue how to count the stairs of the old broken staircase. Should you count the landing? B, played by LI Ang, tells A, “I can’t possibly tell you what I don’t know, but the stairs can lead you to where you want to go. Isn’t that enough?” B is aware that she can’t fathom A’s rules. To A, the question already exists. If he can’t figure it out, it will keep haunting him like a wandering ghost.

From Taiwan, a story of two young friends trying to figure out their relationship as one struggles with his sexual identity and the fear of coming out.

A little girl cuts her hair that is over waist length, therefore broke the taboo of haircut, and she started to see ghosts in her life.

The line between life and death is deeply imprinted in my childhood, I remember a vivid memory of sunny days, a bucket of water almost full and a half-submerged new mouse in a cage wanting freedom, until it was exhausted and surrendered to inevitable death. The music used in this work is the German folk song Ach, wie ist’s möglich dann. In Taiwan folk culture the song was often performed at funerals, an interesting and absurd contrast to the song’s original use in the 1935 German literary film as the soundtrack for a love story. So Zhang choreographs a dance performed to this German folk song about death.

The kung-fu kids return to stop an evil dictator.

Very weird magic fu, filled from start to finish with evil wizards, laserbeams, and crazy spells.

A gang of bandits takes the daughter of a government official hostage. Hoping for a big payout the gang is joined by several mysterious fighters. But can the gang withstand internal division, secret motivations and love?

Adopting a pseudo-documentary format with a film-within-a-film metacinema approach, it portrays the onsite filming and behind-the-scenes during the making of Spy Love.