A family in rural Taiwan starts to break up when the son’s young wife dies giving birth to her second child. The son Kun-Cheng leaves home and drifts into another sexual relationship, but tries to be a good father to his kids and a tolerant, filial son to his parents, both of whom irritate the hell out of him.
Tag: TAIWAN
In 1940s Taiwan, a small Japanese military marching band ceremoniously arrives at an impoverished farming village to return the remains of Taiwanese soldiers who died fighting in a war far from home. The Japanese occupation (1895–1945) is nearing its end, but the villagers are less concerned with colonial politics than with feeding their families. One day, an American bomb falls onto a field, where it lies unexploded. Oblivious to the potential danger, two clownish brothers excitedly carry it into town hoping to be rewarded by the Japanese general. The journey is filled with slapstick humor as the two escape multiple near-death scenarios.
In 1949, the Communists take over mainland. The refugees and the military arrive in the Keelung Harbor in Taiwan. While the father holds secret meetings with other generals in attempt to recover the lost land, the kids still play games with their grandma who still enjoys the harmony and peace in hardship. Gradually, it seems that there was no hope to fight back the fatherland. The general turned father has to run a small business to support the family. He encounters a series of struggles. And finally his kids grow up.
The childhood and early adulthood of Li Tien-lu, an 84-year-old Taiwanese puppet master, comes to life using a combination of documentary technique and elegant dramatization, while the real Li functions as on-and-off-screen narrator, as the film travels from 1908 to 1945.
Set in the early 1970s, it tells the story of a Chinese-Japanese student who returns to her native Hong Kong after graduating from a university in London. Once she arrives back home, she and her family begins to fight, largely due to cultural and societal conflicts between her mother and herself.
In late-19th-century Shanghai, brothels are known as “flower houses.” A small and confined world unto themselves, the brothels offer an alternate universe for the well-to-do male clientele. But for the women who work within, the brothels are no fantasyland; they either succumb to this reality or fight against destiny.