Suzanne Shu-shen Hsiao

Yi Yi

Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.

女生向前走

牵手向明天

Da-Yu: The Touch of Fate

Da Yu, a 15-year-old boy, wanders aimlessly in the lonely city.

Pure Accidents

Tak-yuen, a 35-year-old office worker suffering from the seven-year itch, often fantasizes about how wonderful life would be if his wife, Lai-man, simply disappeared. But when she is accidentally kidnapped by a young couple on the run, his life is turned upside down.

烟雨江南

A Man Staying at a Hotel

Sunny Doll

Hsin-He, a high school sophomore who can get along just fine on her own, lives with her father. At school, the days pass slowly by, until one day, she is assigned to be the student teacher. Since she loaths math, her teacher orders Ke-Lei, student teacher from another class, to tutor her.

曾经

West Town Girls

Due to a combination of bad writing, unnecessary and distracting directorial gimmicks (split screens, black & white, slow motion, etc.) and very inept subtitling, "West Down Girls" is almost completely impossible to follow, but I think it has something to do with the rivalry between two girls who are members of opposing street gangs, and the arrival on the scene of a third girl who is the childhood friend of one of them and the sister of the other. The (very few) action scenes are a complete mess. The film is basically an over-the-top melodrama and makes very little sense. I was too frustrated to even enjoy the beauty of Cheryl Yang and Annie Wu.

A Chance to Die

Burned by the desire to avenge her dead boyfriend, a Japanese woman learns to shoot a gun, and goes after the local Mafia in Taiwan. Mizuno Miki excels in her role as the grieving and estranged, then vengeful and cold-blooded foreigner.

Lament of the Sand River

To achieve his dream of being a trumpet player, a man leaves his hometown and works in a touring operetta troupe. He falls in love with a girl but then contracts tuberculosis, forcing him to give up the trumpet.

Such a life

'Such a Life' is quite a sad film. It is set in the sixties, in a village on the west coast of Taiwan, where many are succumbing to 'black foot', a disease caused by drinking contaminated well water. The only 'cure' is to amputate the afflicted limb, and to avoid drinking the contaminated water. Many in the village were already sick, and few could afford to have tap-water installed. At the center of the story is Ah Chung, who lives with his grandfather, who has already lost one leg to 'black foot'. In the same village also live an opera family, who are finding things increasingly difficult there, an oyster farmer, who complains that his oysters are being poisoned by a nearby pharmaceutical plant, and an assortment of children who enjoy swimming in the sea, and who bully Ah Chung. A significant portion of the action also takes place in the village school, where Ah Chung is having trouble keeping up with the fees.

Never Compromise

Two notorious murderers ignite a violent massacre, leading a determined police force on pursuit to bring them to justice.

Love's Lone Flower

A woman falls in love with two different girls, both singers - one in Shanghai during the late 1940s, the other in Taiwan during the late 1950s.