Taiwanese Film Research Articles

On the Ontology of Taiwanese Films in the Post Declare Martial Law Ended Period

On the Ontology of Taiwanese Films in the Post Declare Martial Law Ended Period

Postcolonialism in the Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful

The history of colonization has always been expressed in many recent Taiwanese films, either intentionally or unintentionally. The 2017 film The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful is the subject of numerous studies on male gaze or feminist film noir, but few studies inspect its implicit postcolonialism. This study aims to assess the rhetorical manifestation of colonial relationships in The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful within its three main characters. Through discussing and analyzing several examples taken from the film, this study believes that Madam Tang takes the position of the colonizer in the personified colonial relationship, and her two daughters as the colonized. Moreover, two kinds of colonial relationships are discovered, which are colonial stereotype between Madam Tang and Tang Ning and colonial mimicry of Tang Zhen. The findings of the present study appear to be the first systematic research into the film’s postcolonialism in terms of its character relationships, which will be helpful in expanding the understanding of the filmic manifestation of colonial relationships worldwide.

The Canvas of Love Under the Light of Technology: An Analysis of Photography, Music and Narrative Techniques of Love Themes in Edward Yang’s Films

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the expression of love themes in Edward Yang’s films, especially through the use of photography, music and narrative techniques, and explores how these elements work together to construct a unique love narrative. Through case analysis of works such as The Murder of the Boys on Kuling Street, Yi Yi and Love in the Wind, this article reveals how Edward Yang used film technology to deepen emotional expression and theme exploration, thus leaving a mark in the history of Taiwanese films. An indelible mark.

Analysis of the Similarities and Differences between The Assassin Nie Yinniang and the New Taiwanese Films

Director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's film The Assassin Nie Yinniang diverges from the conventions of the New Taiwanese Cinema movement, blending black and white with color tones to reflect the emotional and thematic nuances of its protagonist, Nie Yinniang. stands apart from typical martial arts films by de-emphasizing elaborate combat scenes and instead focusing on ambiance and an exploration of loneliness. The film depicts a journey of conflicting ideologies between righteousness and personal emotions, as Nie Yinniang transitions from an assassin adhering to Taoist teachings to a woman entangled in familial affections and personal values. While the film maintains technical elements and filming techniques characteristic of the New Taiwanese Cinema, its thematic divergence focusing on individual subjective expression sets it apart. Unlike the movement's societal reflections, the film delves into personal narrative, exploring the internal conflict of its central character amidst cultural and familial ties. The Assassin Nie Yinniang thereby embodies a unique departure from the thematic trajectory of the New Taiwanese Cinema while maintaining some of its stylistic elements.

Analysis of the Similarities and Differences between The Assassin Nie Yinniang and the New Taiwanese Films

Director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's film The Assassin Nie Yinniang diverges from the conventions of the New Taiwanese Cinema movement, blending black and white with color tones to reflect the emotional and thematic nuances of its protagonist, Nie Yinniang. stands apart from typical martial arts films by de-emphasizing elaborate combat scenes and instead focusing on ambiance and an exploration of loneliness. The film depicts a journey of conflicting ideologies between righteousness and personal emotions, as Nie Yinniang transitions from an assassin adhering to Taoist teachings to a woman entangled in familial affections and personal values. While the film maintains technical elements and filming techniques characteristic of the New Taiwanese Cinema, its thematic divergence focusing on individual subjective expression sets it apart. Unlike the movement's societal reflections, the film delves into personal narrative, exploring the internal conflict of its central character amidst cultural and familial ties. The Assassin Nie Yinniang thereby embodies a unique departure from the thematic trajectory of the New Taiwanese Cinema while maintaining some of its stylistic elements.

Mnemonic Politics around the Japanese Colonial Era in Post–Cold War Taiwan: Wei Te-sheng's Colonial Trilogy and Post–New Cinema

This article examines mnemonic politics after 1987’s democratization in Taiwan by discussing the cinematic representation of colonial memory, mainly focusing on Wei Te‐Sheng's films set in the Japanese colonial era. After the end of martial law in 1987, prohibited issues such as Japanese colonialism and Indigenous Taiwanese in the representational sphere began to appear on the screen. Therefore, the colonial memory that emerged on screen entangles with Cold War politics and the postcolonial geopolitical situation. In Wei's films, he links heroic Indigenous people in the history of Taiwan with the archetypical land. The suffering of those who are tightly bound to the land inspires a sense of deprived sovereignty—that is, occupation. The sense of occupation indicates the long history of colonial Taiwan, from the time of the Netherlands and Spain, via the Qing Dynasty and Japan, to the KMT government. Wei's films reclaim Taiwanese history from the perspective of the Indigenous people who lived in Taiwan before 1945 rather than that of the occupiers. Regardless of the memory of resistance, surrender, victory, or defeat, Wei's films, however, romanticize the memory of the Japanese colonial era. In doing so, his films denounce the time of KMT “occupiers” in the postcolonial era and reinforce Taiwanese nationalism against Chinese nationalism. Through textual analysis of Wei's films and comparison with other films provoking colonial memory, this article investigates how colonial memories are negotiated in the post–Cold War Taiwanese cinema to reformulate the contentious idea of “nation” and “nationalism” in Taiwan.

Degenerative Teenager, Family and Puberty: The Phenomenological Body in The River

The focus on the living conditions of adolesecents has always been an important in Taiwanese cinema. This paper combines philosophical phenomenology represented by Merleau-Pontys body theory with the film phenomenology and unites the presentation of the cinematic body with the audiences corporeal preception to achieve a phenomenological oneness of subject and object. This paper hopes to use The River as a case study to explore tsais concern for marginalized groups and how it evokes emotional resonance in the audience; simultaneously, by examining body narrative and body images, it discusses the audiences visual experience and aesthetic recpetion on a physical and perceptual level, rather than only on a mental one, thus further stinulating academic thinking on the intersubjectivity of film and the body. Specifically, there will be three chapters for analysis: body narrative, situated bodies and role of film technology itself in facilitating the viewers visual experience.

Jinxed byIncantation? Contemporary Chinese Netizens’ Reactions to a Horror Film

AbstractIncantationis a horror film released in the Republic of China (Taiwan) in March 2022, which is inspired by a real-life story and features a woman’s rescue of her six-year-old daughter after the latter is cursed by an abhorrent deity with occult powers. This film is adulated as one of the scariest Taiwanese films and attained prodigious commercial success. Nonetheless, in mainland China,Incantationis regarded as more of a contentious film than a fearsome one: audiences’ prevalent feedback is that they feel jinxed and offended, as indicated by their complaints on social media platforms as well as reviewing and question-and-answer websites. The primary reason lies in that the film’s heroine breaks the fourth wall and addresses audiences directly, which is further intensified by the film’s mockumentary shooting style and found-footage technique. In this research, I explore the rationale behind Chinese audiences’ negative and emotional comments onIncantationfrom a viewer’s perspective, by means of investigating their self-initiated comments and user-generated responses in China’s cyberspace, focusing on feedback posted on Weibo, Douban and Zhihu. Data cumulated from these sources manifest Chinese netizens’ mindset concerning contentious religious/supernatural discourse in cyberspace as well as their rationality towards superstitious constructs.

Review: Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang, by Nicholas de Villiers

Review: <i>Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang</i>, by Nicholas de Villiers

Analysis of the Female Characters in "Blood Goddess" from the Perspective of Lacan's Mirror Theory

Written and directed by Yazhe Yang, the Taiwanese film "Blood Goddess" won the Best Feature Film Award at the 54th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards. The film tells the story of the heroine, Tang Zhen, who, after experiencing various subversive blows and self-alienation in the fierce battle of politicians under the dark 1980s, eventually transforms into a new generation of ruthless "Mrs. Tang After experiencing various subversive blows and self-alienation, she finally transforms into a new generation of ruthless "Mrs. Tang" and realizes the real subject pursuit. This paper uses French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's core theory - mirror theory - to start the analysis, discussing how the protagonist Tang really grows from an "angel" to a "demon" step by step, thus making a deeper understanding of the film.

Precocious modernism: Mou Tun-Fei’s I Didn’t Dare to Tell You (1969) and The End of the Track (1970)

In cataloguing donated films previously not on the record, the Taiwan Film Institute found Mou Tun-Fei’s two films, I Didn’t Dare to Tell You (1969) and The End of the Track (1970). Aesthetically daring, topically sensitive, and culturally unprecedented, these works feature children and adolescents as their protagonists, detailing the Taiwanese experiences and changing landscapes at the time from their precocious perspectives. It is not an overstatement to see these two films as signaling a kind of cinematic modernism. Here, I propose the term precocious modernism as a framework to extrapolate the significance of these two films. The descriptor precocious is meant to capture Mou’s aesthetic ambition in portraying such stories as well as these films’ standing in the historical context of Sinophone cinema and more generally art and literature circles in Taiwan. The word modernism signals how the films are stylistically connected to the global neorealism and European cinematic modernism and how their distinct vision anticipates in some way the New Cinema a decade later. Through this lens, I aim to deconstruct the linear discourses of cinematic modernism in order to partially reformulate Taiwanese film history in a multilinear manner.

Rediscovering New Taiwan Cinema in and outside of Greater China: Wei Te-sheng’s Cape No. 7 and Chang Tso-chi’s Soul of a Demon

Wei Te-sheng’s Cape No. 7 and Chang Tso-chi’s Soul of a Demon are examples of Taiwanese films set in Taiwan during the era of Japanese rule. Since the early 2000s, many of these films have been well received by Taiwanese audiences. Both Cape No. 7 and Soul of a Demon address issues pertaining to Taiwanese identity and history, but how they approach these issues marks a drastic difference. In this paper, I will use Soul of a Demon and Cape No. 7 to illustrate the ongoing development of New Taiwan Cinema and to answer the following questions: How does a younger generation of filmmakers of New Taiwan Cinema endeavor to meet their audiences from different media platforms? How do they engage their audiences in conversations with popular topics when filmmaking today is more diversified in terms of circulation channels, funding resources, and reception?

Investigation on the Mediality of Cahiers du Cinéma in the New Wave Period from the Perspective of Material Space Production

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, New Wave as a film revolution started in France, with the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma as its position at that time, thus forming the "Handbook School" of the director. Its characteristics such as reflecting social reality, challenging traditional narrative, and deviating from the Hollywood model all proved that it was a significant breakthrough in film history. The vigorous spiritual return behind these characteristics was once regarded as the highlight of individualism philosophy, which is also the origin of most studies on Cahiers du Cinéma. However, these studies often dwell on the close reading of the text, which seemingly tells a lot of complicated content but forms the myth of power and relationship. Therefore, the meta-process of meaning space construction needs to be uncovered from scattered rhetoric and explanation, and the investigation of the mediality provides a reliable clue. This perspective starting from the concrete intermediary structure, identity dispatch, and then to the call of connected reality is imaginative to the existentialist practitioners who seem to be unique and independent. When space production is projected into the history continuation and reality evolution, the new wave spreads all over the world. For example, Cahiers du Cinéma inspired Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Edward Yang, Ang Lee, and others to the stage, opening another chapter of Taiwanese films. Coinciding with Sartre's existentialism, author theory, and Bazin's documentary aesthetics shows its unique theoretical bridging value and the construction of media ontology, which is also the theoretical contribution of this paper.

From Taiwan New Cinema to Post-New Cinema: The Transition of Identity in Cape No. 7 and the Naming Issue of Post-New Cinema

Abstract In 2008, Taiwan’s cinema began to get back on its feet after an extended lull, with several directors successively releasing critically acclaimed first works. Compared with the well-known Taiwan New Cinema, this new film trend works within the conventions of genre and often focuses on local issues and ordinary life. In doing so, critics and scholars call it Post-New Cinema. Yet, its naming brings difficulties to our understanding on this epoch-making wave, since it neither intends to innovate the paradigm and the framework established by New Cinema, nor does it completely inherit the legacy left by it. Therefore, these uncertain interpretations motivate us to review the legitimacy of this naming. This essay will evaluate firstly the genealogy from the Taiwan New Cinema to the Post-New Cinema in aesthetic and historical–cultural representation, to further propose the paradox about the naming of Post-New Cinema. Secondly, we attempted, by comparing the two most representative films of the two periods, Cape No. 7 and A City of Sadness, an initial look at the transition and the transformation in terms of aesthetical demonstration, historical representation, and ethnic politics, to argue that a subtle change in identity has been created in Taiwanese cinema since 2008.

Dominant, passive, and recessive feminism: a postfeminist reading of Taiwanese cinema

ABSTRACT This paper aims to add to the underrepresented scholarship on feminist critique in Taiwanese cinema by investigating the ways in which female power has been represented in the female-centred Taiwanese film, The Bold, the Corrupt and the Beautiful (BCB). Through a postfeminist reading, this study attempts to challenge the dichotomy of Asian versus Western values in order to engage Taiwanese films into the global debate of feminism. By revealing the problematization of representations of the seemingly powerful female characters in BCB produced by male filmmakers, we unveil the hidden contradiction of feminism and anti-feminism in order to gain a profound understanding of women’s power relations and the socio-cultural perception of them in the Taiwanese context. We categorise the three leading female characters into significations of “dominant feminism”, “passive feminism”, and “recessive feminism”, and show how their power is exercised through scheming, seduction and detainment, respectively. Therefore, we argue that these seemingly powerful female images in BCB are all represented as stigmatic which attempts to equalize female power to negativity thereby essentially disavowing feminism.

The Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute’s Taiwanese-language cinema restoration project

This article presents the forty-year history of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute’s efforts to save Taiwanese language films, taiyupian, starting from collecting, preserving, and through to digital restoration. The TFAI’s project to restore taiyupian aims to make these films available in this digital era, so that they can be digitally projected, and give Taiwanese-language cinema a new life. These restored films are vibrant, possess modernist aesthetics, and are boldly creative. With the newly restored films, the styles of the important taiyupian directors can be re-examined and given the new recognition they deserve. Furthermore, the TFAI calls for a repositioning of Taiwanese-language cinema in Taiwan film history.

Making Southeast Asian Migrant Workers Visible in Taiwanese Cinema: Pinoy Sunday and Ye-Zai

Author(s): Chen, Tzu-Chin Insky | Abstract: In Taiwan, the term for “migrant workers” (waiji yigong) refers to non-Han immigrant populations—including those from Thailand and the Philippines—whose numbers have been increasing since the 2000s. As these populations have grown, they have become part of the public conversation, and cinematic representations of migrant workers have increased as well. Immigrant films function as a form of recognition and thereby challenge the homogeneous Taiwanese national identity. Two questions arise: Is it possible to change existing stereotypes and cultural conflicts? And, how can we avoid a crisis of oversimplified presentations of immigrants? In order to address these questions, this article examines two films: Ho Wi Ding’s Pinoy Sunday (Taibei Xingqitian 台北星期天 2009), a comedy that focuses on two Filipino immigrant workers’ lives in Taipei, and Tseng Ying-ting’s Ye-Zai 椰仔 (2012), a crime film with a plot that involves tracking down “runaway migrant workers” (taopao wailao).The author employs three different lenses or paradigms to consider the establishment of migrant-worker subjects in these films in order to fully understand the power dynamics at play in the workers’ interactions with Taiwan’s broader society. Because of state and social attempts to control these migrant workers, the first important paradigm is the act of “running away,” which makes border restrictions in Taiwan clear and creates a space to explore strategies of escape from routine lives. Second, by considering how different powers intersect, the author explores the relationship between the viewer and the viewed, and how migrant workers can become the subjects, not just the objects, in this paradigm. By employing two techniques of visualization—the gaze and symbolism—these films present migrant workers’ emotions and desires, which are rarely shown in mainstream cinemas, and encourage viewers to recognize the perspectives of migrant workers. Finally, the author suggests the use of the language act as a means of resistance to show different affiliations and identities in both films; the visibility of these migrant workers challenges their discrimination. Keywords: Taiwan, Taiwanese film, waiji yigong, migrant workers, immigrant labor, Pinoy Sunday, Taibei Xingqitian, Ye-Zai, ethnoscapes, non-Han-Taiwanese identities

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF MOVIE CHARACTERS: THE CASE OF THE TAG-ALONG

The types of Taiwanese films are becoming more and more abundant, especially those with “thriller” or “horror” elements. In addition to the increase in these types of film production, there are more brilliant box office performances. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to conduct a more in-depth analysis of this type of films. Analyzing the role design and plot direction in the films, so that there is a narrative structure can be referenced in this type of works. This study adopted text analysis, and coupled with the character functions theory proposed by scholar Propp. This study analyzed the functionalities of the main characters in the famous domestic movie “The Tag-Along”. The research results show that there are 6 types of functional characters in “The Tag-Along”: the villain, the helper, the donor, the dispatcher, the hero and the princess. In the 31 character functions listed by Propp, the film contains 18 of them, and these 18 functions are used to describe the story. The film of thriller and horror types are still developing in Taiwan, and the researchers expect to use this research result to find the narrative structure of this type of films. Filmmakers will have a basic structure for reference when creating such movies, and at the same time it extends the other possibilities of this type of films in the development of characters and plots.

Reconciliation Otherwise

Research Article| August 01 2018 Reconciliation Otherwise: Intimacy, Indigeneity, and the Taiwan Difference Leo T. S. Ching Leo T. S. Ching Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google boundary 2 (2018) 45 (3): 27–44. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-6915557 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter Email Permissions Search Site Citation Leo T. S. Ching; Reconciliation Otherwise: Intimacy, Indigeneity, and the Taiwan Difference. boundary 2 1 August 2018; 45 (3): 27–44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-6915557 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll Journalsboundary 2 Search Advanced Search This essay analyzes two Taiwan differences in East Asia—the presence of an indigenous population and its alleged pro-Japan sentiments— and examines how indigeneity and intimacy offer the potential to rethink questions of reconciliation outside of the state-centric model of political negotiation in post–Cold War postcolonial East Asia. The Japanese novel Exceedingly Barbaric (2008), by Tsushima Yuko, and the Taiwanese film Finding Sayun (2010), by Aboriginal filmmaker Laha Mebow (Chen Jie-Yao), are analyzed as rehabilitations of colonial wounds outside of the normative politics of recognition. They are, instead, fictive articulations of intergenerational intimacy that displace historical colonialism as the primary site where an alternate and nonstatist reconciliation can take place. reconciliation, intimacy, colonialism The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2018 Duke University Press2018 You do not currently have access to this content.

Two fools: Comedy as dialectical tension in mid-century Chinese cinemas

ABSTRACTThis paper will trace the complex lineage of Brother Wang and Brother Liu in Taiwanese cinema, beginning with the emergence of a ‘two fools’ (兩傻) genre in imported cinema from Hollywood and Hong Kong, a category which included classic Laurel and Hardy, late Abbott and Costello, the more contemporary Martin and Lewis, Cantonese song and dance film and Mandarin comedies from Cathay featuring the likes of King Hu, Liu Enjia and Jiang Guangchao. When the two fools genre was adapted in Taiwan, an additional social allegory of mainlander and islander solidarity came to the fore: thin actor Zhong Fucai was a local, while fat actor Li Guanzhang arrived from mainland China after 1949. Their unshakeable solidarity and many shared feasts suggest a utopian dimension to the comedy duo, in which homosocial friendship transcends all differences. The visual iconicity of their bodies sharing the frame and the low quality of sound in taiyupian meant that these films often leaned upon the plasmatic appeal of physical comedy instead of dialogue for comic effect, an aesthetic that would continue to dominate taiyupian comedies until the end of the 1960s.