Eight films will be shown at the Taiwan Film Festival In Bangkok 2018, which runs from Jan 17-23 at Quartier Cineart, EmQuartier. Besides a selection of new films, cinema lovers will certainly jam the screening of the 1991 film A Brighter Summer Day, a classic from the late Edward Yang and definitely one of the best Chinese-language films ever made.
Contemporary Taiwanese cinema, many have argued, began with Yang in the 1980s. Among his nine titles as director, A Brighter Summer Day is the most cherished and realised, a masterpiece steeped in the ground-level reality of Taiwanese life in 1960. More than that, it's a bold, luminous proof that cinema is a cultural force that contributes to the (de)construction of a nation's identity.
Running at four hours, A Brighter Summer Day seems intimidating. But it's not: it's an engaging four hours of family, friendship, gangs and rock'n'roll. Elvis' Are You Lonesome Tonight was a hit that year, and thus the film's title. The sprawling story centres on a teenager called Xiao Si'r (Chang Chen, before he went on to become a star in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Grandmaster) and his misadventure as a juvenile delinquent in a Taiwan ruled by a military regime. His father is one of those mainlanders who left China for Taipei after the Civil War, and the long, hard struggle to find a sense of belonging chokes the destiny of every character in the story.
If you have to watch just one Taiwanese film, watch this. Make a quick booking; the two screenings on Jan 18 and 22 are said to be filling up very fast.
But of course you don't have to just watch one film. The Taiwan Film Festival is presenting a roster of new films that are worth checking out (plus two Thai films, to make this an event of cultural intersection), and especially because of the fact that while hit Thai movies often open commercially in Taipei, hardly any Taiwanese films have been released in our multiplexes.
The opening night on Jan 17 will screen Hang In There, Kids!, which tells the story of three indigenous children from a remote tribe and their adventure in the capital. The film was Taiwan's representative to the Oscars in 2016.
A Fish Out Of Water is a coming-of-age family drama about a young boy and his mysterious origin, with a touch of the supernatural.
In Godspeed, a drug pusher takes a cab ride to deliver the goods, but what's supposed to be a routine trip turns into a flight from a mob attack. The film also stars Thai actor Vithaya Pansringam (who has more roles in foreign movies than in Thai ones).
Next is Missing Johnny -- a construction worker, an autistic boy, and a girl with a pet bird whose lives intertwine in an unexpected way. Many Taiwanese films deal with the theme of loneliness in the urban environment, and this is one of them.
The sole documentary film in the festival is Ode To Time, which follows a group of singers who, 40 years ago, wrote and performed music that became part of Taiwan's history. Now they want to reunite for another concert.
White Ant is a psychological drama about a man who has a fetish for women's lingerie. When he receives a DVD in which someone has recorded his kinky behaviour, he has to find a way out of a scandal.
Lastly, the festival will screen The Laundryman, a horror/action film about a hitman who's hounded by the ghost of his victim. To dispel the spirit, he tries the service of a shaman who runs a laundry shop as a front.
And really finally, there are two Thai films to complete the festival. One is a documentary Phantom Of Illumination, which records the last day of a stand-alone cinema and a projectionist who remains until the end; the other is a restored 1984 classic The Story Of Nampu, a family drama about a young drug addict, starring Ampol Lampoon in his star-making role.
The Taiwan Film Festival In Bangkok runs from Jan 17-23 at Quartier Cineart, EmQuartier. See schedule at Facebook: Taiwan Film Festival Bangkok 2018, or Facebook: V Active Cinema.
Missing Johnny.
