Taiwan Films Now and Then

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 05 May 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The cinema series Taiwan Stories: Classic & Contemporary Films from Taiwan screens May 6 - 19, 2011 at Lincoln Center‛s Walter Reade Theater in Manhattan, New York, in celebration of the Centennial of the Republic of China.

"Taiwan is responsible for giving us some of the greatest directors in world cinema. This new series explores three generations of talent that have emerged from this small island nation, including must-see new discoveries."

Screenings in this series include:

A Time to Live, A Time to Die
Hou Hsiao-hsien (1985)
In Hou’s autobiographical masterpiece -- the second installment in his groundbreaking trilogy of coming-of-age stories -- the director revisits the small-town landscapes of his youth, utilizing his trademark long shots to chronicle a family’s struggle to acclimate to life in Taiwan in the aftermath of the Chinese Revolution.

A Touch of Zen
King Hu (1969)
Starring Ying Bai, Billy Chan, Ping-Yu Chang
From the original master of the martial-arts movie comes a contemplative classic about a poor scholar’s quest for experience. In this classic of the wuxia genre, a poor scholar who is nagged by his mother finds himself accompanying a mysterious woman, a master fighter out for vengeance. This was the first Chinese-language film to win an award at Cannes.
 
Autumn Execution
Li Xing (1971)
Starring Hui Lou Chen, Shao Ching Chou, Bi Hui Fu
Condemned to death, a rich young wastrel in the Han Dynasty waits months for his execution, leading his grandmother to plot a marriage for him.

Beauty of Beauties
Li Hanxiang (1965)
Starring Feng Chang, Kuan Chao, Ching Chiang, Lei Zhao, Mu Zhu,
In this spectacular historical epic, a gorgeous villager is sent to the king’s palace to foment palace intrigue at the behest of a conquered rival.

Cape No. 7
Wei Tei-Sheng (2008)
Starring Van, Chie Tanaka, Min-Hsiung, Wei-min Ying, Nien-Hsien Ma, Johnny Chung-Jen Lin
In Wei’s box-office smash, a singer turned postman finds love and music in a seaside town thanks to a cache of love letters and an impromptu concert gig. This is still Taiwan‛s all-time highest grossing film.
 
Early Train From Taipei
Liang Zhefu (1964)
Starring Wang Ge, Hu Dou, Chen Caixing, Wu Jingfang, Chen Yang, Bai Lan, Ling Ling
An innocent country girl who goes to the big city gets chewed up and re-made and chewed up again in Liang’s lurid melodrama. Featuring contemporary Taiwanese pop.

In Our Time
Edward Yang (co-directors Tao Dechen, Ko Yi-cheng, Chan Yi) (1982)
Starring Sylvia Chang, Ying-chen Chang, Sheng-wen Lan
Yang‛s directorial debut was Expectations, about a girl’s coming-of-age, one of the four episodes in this omnibus.

Kuei-Mei, a Woman
Chang Yi (1985)
Starring Yang Huey-sian, Lichun Lee, Wen Ying
After leaving the mainland, a woman weathers a lousy husband and the trials of work.

Monga
Doze Niu (2010)
starring Ching-Tien Juan, Mark Chao, Ju-Lung Ma
This stylish, wildly popular gangster epic, set in 1980s Taiwan at the end of the military dictatorship, follows Mosquito’s coming-of-age through turf wars and more.

Our Neighbors aka Head of Street, End of Lane
Li Xing (1963)
Starring Yu Hua Ho, Ming Lei, Kuan-Chang Li
Digitally restored Li’s warm urban portrait of a garbageman takes a neorealist approach, using location shooting as it draws out a slum’s sense of community.

Oyster Girl
Li Xing, Li Jia (1964)
Starring Ming Jiao Chen, Pin Chiang, Hsiao Hua Hsu
In an oyster- farming village in southwest Taiwan, a woman falls for a fisherman who can’t pay the pricey dowry set by her widowed father.

Rebels of the Neon GodTsai Ming-liang (1992)
Starring Chao-jung Chen, Chang-bin Jen, Kang-sheng Lee
One of Taiwan’s modern masters, Tsai Ming-liang, debuted with this gritty tale of teens negotiating the haunting spaces, physical and psychological, of modern city life.

Rouge of the North
Fred Tan (1988)
starring Sally Chen, Emily Cheung, Pat Ha, Hsu Ming, Jack Kao, Ma Siu Gwan, Hsia Ching Ting
Married off to a rich man, a woman gets an unsentimental education in a backstabbing household, in this examination of women‛s place in Chinese society at the turn of the 20th century.
 
The Fourth Portrait
Chung Mong-Hong (2010)
Starring  Terri Kwan, Hao Lei, Bi Xiao-Hai
An orphan ends up with a prostitute foster mother and tries to stay on track in Chung’s award-winning mix of art house aesthetics and family drama.

The Silent Wife
Li Xing (1965)
Starring Wang Mochou, Ke Junxiong
Li scored a box-office hit with this romance of self-sacrifice about a virtuous mute, adapted from a work by the wildly popular Qiong Yao.

Saturday, May 7 at 4pm there will be a conference on "Filmmaking in Taiwan: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow."

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com/films.

Classic & Contemporary Films from Taiwan
May 6 - 19, 2011

Walter Reade Theater
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York City

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