Tag: 2017

Halmoni (Daniel Kim, 2017)

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A Korean grandmother creates a paradise amid the arid lands of Argentina in Daniel Kim’s personal documentary, Halmoni. Underneath the film’s title, the Spanish translation, Abuela, appears hinting at the duality of cultures which the director contemplates while examining the longterm effects of the migration on his family who seem to console themselves with the notion that home is a place where you “live with a fully belly” while his grandmother finds a reason to live in the cultivation of land, planting flowers that will bloom long after she is gone. 

Kim’s grandparents married during the chaos of the Korean War and migrated to Argentina after a fire claimed the school where his grandfather had been working as a teacher. Travelling firstly to Brazil, the family then came to Argentina and received land from the government with a plan of growing lettuce which was otherwise thought unsuited to the terrain though grandfather was confident he could make it work after seeing fields of chicory growing in the same area. Though there have apparently been some problems with money and ownership, the farm now appears large and successful with the family still working it, the grandmother explaining that work keeps her alive and gives her life both rhythm and meaning. 

Yet it’s obvious that life there has not been easy. The land and farmhouse are very remote and when the family first arrived, there was not even a road that led to it. The grandfather and his son made one themselves while the son was later forced to give up on his education in Buenos Aires to help his family run the farm. As we later discover both men later took to drink in disappointment with their lives and eventually died of it. The women of the family who have largely kept the farm going also complain about the extreme cold and heavy snow which further isolate it and trap them in a liminal place that is both Korea and Argentina and simultaneously neither. 

The daughter suggests she’d rather be in Buenos Aires, but when she’s in Buenos Aires all she thinks about is the farm. Later in the film, the grandmother travels to Korea for the first time in 23 years and is moved on realising that she no longer recognises her now middle-aged nephew. Many of her friends and remaining family members encourage her to return to Korea, but she points out that her children and grandchildren are all settled in Argentina while the cultures have become so blurred for her that she lives moment to moment not always sure of what is Korea and what is Argentina. Another woman later says something similar but in Spanish, that if she were to go to Korea she doesn’t think she would feel Korean but neither does she feel Argentinian in Argentina and does not know where she is from. 

Yet the grandmother’s friends also worry for her when she tells them that despite her long years of hard work she has no savings while those who migrated to America or stayed in Korea were often able to find financial stability that will accompany them into old age. Kim briefly includes a scene from home video in which one of the children angrily challenges the grandfather and accuses him of misusing money while also raising some kind of religious dispute which receives no further explanation but hints at a buried resentment and discord within the family which is otherwise absent from the cheerful footage of them celebrating a wedding and coming together with other members of the Korean community. Meanwhile the government is said to have taken back half of their land when the farm experienced financial difficulty and that it was the inability to finish what his father had started that later drove the son to drink. Even so another of the women hurriedly finishes her tea worried that people watching the film will assume they are lazy while a man behind her counters that they should show them that they rest too. The grandmother tells her granddaughter about planting seeds and that some flowers must disappear so that new ones can grow as she patiently tends to her orchards, a hard-won paradise forged in arid land by little more than love and perseverance. 

Halmoni screens at the Korean Cultural Centre, London on 4th August as part of Korean Film Nights 2022: Living Memories.

ReLIFE (ReLIFE リライフ, Takeshi Furusawa, 2017)

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Is there such a thing as toxic conventionality? The hero of Takeshi Furusawa’s manga adaptation ReLife (ReLIFE リライフ) has driven himself into despair in his failure to achieve conventional success in contemporary Japan, fearing that in having fallen from one of the earliest rungs of the ladder he’ll never be able to climb back up and therefore has no real future. Even so, his dissatisfaction is turned entirely inward rather than channelled into a desire to change society for the better, his eventual epiphany amounting to the determination to help others persevere amid constant disappointment rather than encouraging them to reject the mainstream and search for bespoke happiness. 

At 27, Arata (Taishi Nakagawa) isn’t sure why his life turned out this way. He thought he’d follow the conventional path, graduate uni, get a steady salaryman job, marry around 25 and settle down into a comfortable middle class life, but now he’s trapped in a perpetual cycle of job seeking and part-time work with his savings running out and final demands pouring in. Invited to a gathering with old friends one of whom is getting married, he shaves and puts on a suit playing the role of the conventional salaryman they all assume him to be too ashamed to let them know he’s struggling. So when he’s accosted in the street by a strangely elfin young man, Yoake (Yudai Chiba), who tries to recruit him into an experimental programme in which they’ll pay his living expenses while he spends a year as a high school senior he finds himself agreeing. 

This is no time travel story, however, the magic pills merely turn Arata back into a 17 year old to enrol in a contemporary high school with kids 10 years younger than himself. He can’t literally change his past but is supposed to use the time to grow as a person, rediscovering a sense of possibility that comes with youth and dwindles with age. His initial intention is just to ride it out seeing as he’ll have no immediate worries for food or shelter and has been guaranteed help with the job hunt when the year is up and he returns to being 28, but inevitably finds himself drawn into teenage intrigue helping each of his new friends reach their own epiphanies in gaining the courage to declare their feelings or overcome their shyness in trying to decide the further course of their lives. 

Part of his own epiphany lies in his renewed desire to be part of a community, no longer isolated in his personal shame but actively participating while embracing his innate kindness and desire to help others. As we later learn, he quit his company job on uncovering workplace sexism and petty harassment, unable tolerate it that a talented colleague (Mikako Ichikawa) found her career sabotaged by men who didn’t like it that she was good at her job and therefore presented a threat to their success. Arata naively brought the matter to the attention of his boss but his boss sided with the guys and had her transferred out. Given this information, it makes little sense that Akira quit his job in protest but then continued to apply for new ones with other companies presumably assuming they would be different rather than accepting workplace bullying is a systemic issue. 

This is the fundamental problem with his experiences in ReLife in that the path he eventually discovers lies in helping other people endure this already corrupt system which isn’t working for anyone, let alone himself. His emphasis on the spirit of never giving up and being there for those in need is noble, but ultimately only enables the system which caused so many to fall into despair in insisting that it is they who need to live up to these culturally defined ideals of conventional success rather than challenging the deeply ingrained social codes which prevent them from pursuing personal happiness. Part high school nostalgia drama complete with a potentially inappropriate romance, ReLIFE is replete with typical genre motifs such as the cultural festival and summer fireworks display along with the continual sense of something coming to an end as Arata finally convinces himself to “treasure the moment” rather than remain trapped between past regret and fear of an uncertain future, but perhaps sends the uncomfortable message that adult life is something you just have bear rather than actively enjoy. 

ReLIFE streams until 27th February in several territories as part of Japanese Film Festival Online 2022.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

The Empty Hands (空手道, Chapman To, 2017)

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“You have to remember. You’ll always meet someone stronger than you. They might beat you down, but no matter what you need to have the courage to face it.” the defeated heroine of Chapman To’s second feature The Empty Hands (空手道) is reminded by her rediscovered mentor pushing her towards a literal reclaiming of her space in accepting her father’s legacy. The title, a literal translation of the characters which form the word “karate”, is perhaps also an allusion to the heroine’s sense of powerlessness and displacement even as she learns to rediscover a source of strength in that which she had previously dismissed as a worthless burden. 

30-something Mari Hirakawa (Stephy Tang Lai-Yan) is the daughter of a Japanese émigré, Akira (Yasuaki Kurata), who came to Hong Kong in 1972 on a work transfer and later married a local woman. Teaching karate as a hobby in his spare time, he eventually discovered that in the Hong Kong of the late 70s and 80s, martial arts was a valuable commodity and so he sunk all his savings into buying a sizeable flat in Causeway Bay, converting the living area into a Dojo with the family relegated to neighbouring rooms. The business did well but the family floundered and when Mari’s mother asked Akira to mortgage the dojo to help out her brother who ran into financial trouble during the 89 crisis his refusal and the uncle’s subsequent suicide led her to leave the family. A lonely child, Mari complains that her overly strict father forced her to practice karate against her will, something which she gave up as a brown belt after an unexpected tournament defeat swearing off the practice ever since.

When Akira dies suddenly, however, Mari is forced into a reconsideration of her life choices on discovering that he has left only 49% of the apartment/dojo to her with the controlling share entrusted to a former pupil, Chan Keung (Chapman To Man-Chat). Prior to this discovery, she had been cynically planning to subdivide the apartment into seven units, renting out six and living in the seventh solely on her proceeds from exploiting Hong Kong’s notoriously difficult housing market. Mari is, it has to be said, often difficult to like, defiantly aloof and with a healthy contempt for other people even throwing back a racial slur, albeit with a pinch of irony, at a little boy who’s been frequenting the dojo expressly in order to fight back against the discrimination he faces in everyday life as a member of the Indian community. This might be something you’d expect Mari to show a little more empathy for but she seems ambivalent in her sense of identity immediately introducing herself as Japanese on giving her name to man who works at the radio station where she gets a job as a security guard and with whom she drifts into a doomed affair. 

Mari’s affair with a married man is another thing of which she believes her father disapproved, but it’s also a reflection of her low self-esteem and awkward relationship with paternal authority in that she continues to seek but is afraid to ask for approval from emotionally distant men. She claims to have only one friend, Peggy (Dada Chan Ching), whom she somewhat cruelly dismisses as “all boobs and no brain”, explaining to her that what she likes about Ka Chun (Ryan Lau Chun-Kong) is his “loyalty” ironically admiring his refusal to leave his childhood sweetheart wife but also confident that he will one day choose her. Beaten down by life, Mari has perhaps backed away from the fight passively retreating while refusing to deal with her conflicted sense of identity and desire. She resents the implication that she petulantly jacked in karate after a single defeat destroyed her sense of confidence, but as we discover it is indeed her fear of failure which has been holding her back. Chan Keung’s bet that he will sign over his share of the apartment if she can remain standing, even if she loses, after three rounds in an upcoming competition is then a subtle way of getting her stand up again and rediscover a sense of confidence to fight for herself in the arena of life. 

Ironically enough, Chan Keung had been kicked out of the dojo for doing just that, told off for using karate to prove himself when its true purpose should be in the defence of others in need of help. He rediscovers the true spirit of karate after rescuing a little girl from a predatory triad, but Akira’s mission is also one of redemption for Chan Keung as he patiently mentors the originally reluctant Mari back towards an acceptance both of her father and of her relationship with karate along with the confidence that counters defeat. A meditative mood piece from the hitherto comedian To anchored by a stand out performance from Tang (who apparently spent six months training for the role) pushing back against glossy rom-com typecasting, The Empty Hands is less martial arts movie than gentle life lesson as its beaten-down heroine learns to fight her way out of existential malaise towards a more forgiving future. 

The Empty Hands streams in the UK 9th to 15th February as part of Focus Hong Kong

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Mermaid Unlimited (인어전설, O Muel, 2017)

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Venal city corporatism meets traditional Jeju culture in O Muel’s quirky comedy Mermaid Unlimited (인어전설, Ineojeonseol). An island movie showcasing the laidback charms of a disappearing way of life through those of the haenyo divers, Mermaid Unlimited is also an early example of cinema’s recent fascination with the art of synchronised swimming in which this most organised of sports helps a troubled young woman get a much needed reset in her life thanks to the down-home wisdom of the island aunties and the healing waters of Jeju.

A well-meaning government body has come up with a plan to promote synchronised swimming by getting a team of traditional haenyo divers as a warm up act before a national competition to be held in Jeju in the hope of making the sport “more accessible”. Former national team member Ga-yeon (Kang Rae-yeon) is under a lot of pressure to get a medal, not least to dispel the doubts of a hostile suit upset at having been passed over for project lead. In any case, she recommends an old colleague, Yeong-ju (Jeon Hye-Bin), who was the leading light of their old squad to coach the island ladies so they can perform a routine as requested by the PR people. However, there are several issues with this plan. The first being that village chief Bongseok (Lee Kyung-joon) has been a little over enthusiastic in agreeing to the idea seeing as there are very few remaining haenyo in the local area and many of them are understandably getting on in years. Meanwhile, Yeong-ju is in the middle of an extended personal crisis and is in fact a functioning alcoholic. 

Nevertheless, her appearance on the island immediately causes a commotion not least with Bongseok who is instantly smitten. She is herself, however, not perhaps convinced, instantly earning the ire of the defacto leader of the haenyo, the feisty and foulmouthed Okja (Moon Hee-kyung), after thoughtlessly describing the women as a load of old grannies, doubtful if they are really worthy of her precious “water ballet”. What ensues is a less than genial face off as the two women try to prove themselves queen of the seas through a petty competition which ends inconclusively and with a degree of drama but does eventually broker a kind of solidarity if only as they slag off their useless menfolk. In any case, the island ladies begin training in earnest while attempting to deal with their own quirky island problems. 

The island is certainly home to a fair few characters from Bongseok, smitten and overexcited while slightly clueless as to what the project entails (selling his empty swimming pool as bound to fill up next time it rains), to Okja’s wayward son Mansoo (Eo Sung-wook) and his bad romance, the pregnant haenyo who wants to give birth the old-fashioned way, a strange shanmaness and her son who has learning difficulties, and the young woman who desperately wants to become a haenyo despite her mother’s objections. Yeong-ju had a point when she suggested there weren’t many younger women around, most of the haenyo are indeed middle aged or older, and it’s fair to say this is a way of life fast disappearing. Okja laments that they haven’t been able to catch much lately, and later we hear of the building of a sea wall which may be having a detrimental affect on sea life so much so that there are reports of an elderly diver from a few villages over going missing at sea while protesting. Even so, the old women remain fiercely proud of their island culture and determined to protect it, seeing in the synchronised swimming exercise a way to show off their existence, something which perhaps mildly backfires bringing an influx of foreign tourists to the island hoping get the haenyo experience much to the confusion of the underprepared though very excited Bongseok. 

Through her friendship with Okja and the gentle support of the other island ladies who’ve seen enough of life to be unjudgemental, Yeong-ju begins to work through her unresolved trauma and alcohol issues while falling in love with island life and the traditional haenyo culture. A gentle ode to the wholesome charms of Jeju with its beautiful ocean vistas and hard spun rural wisdom, Mermaid Unlimited makes the case not only for the power of female solidarity but of bodies in unison as a means of existential healing through shared endeavour. 

Mermaid Unlimited streams in Poland until 6th December as part of the 14th Five Flavours Film Festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Path of Destiny (不得不上路, Yang Chun-Kai, 2017)

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Taiwan’s indigenous culture is an all too often neglected facet of the island’s history, but as Yang Chun-Kai’s documentary Path of Destiny (不得不上路, Bùdébù Shànglù) makes plain, it is sometimes unknown even within its own community. Following researcher Panay Mulu who has been studying the Sikawasay shamans of the Lidaw Amis people in Hualien for over 20 years and has since become a shaman herself, Yang explores this disappearing way of life along with the (im)possibilities of preserving it for later generations in the fiercely modern Taiwanese society. 

A member of the indigenous community though from a Christian family, Panay Malu recalls witnessing Sikawasay rituals in her childhood though only at the harvest festival. Her family’s religion made the existence of the Sikawasay a taboo, viewed as a kind of devilry to be avoided at all costs. Yet running into an entirely different kind of ritual, Panay found herself captivated not least by the beautiful ritualised music and thereafter began trying to gain access to the community who were perhaps understandably frosty in the beginning. Eventually she gave up her teaching position to devote herself to research full time and was finally inducted as a shaman becoming a fully fledged member. 

Listening to the stories of the old ladies, they explain that those who become Sikawasay often do so after sufffering from illness, one of the main rituals involving a shaman using their mouth to suck out bad energy and cure illness. Yet they are also subject to arcane rules and prohibitions that they fear put younger people off joining such as refraining from eating garlic, onions, and chicken, and being required to avoid touch prior to certain rituals. Under traditional custom, widows are also expected to self isolate at home often for a period of years to avoid transmitting the “bad energy” of their grief to others. 

Perhaps for these reasons, Panay is the youngest of the small group of Sikawasay who now number only half a dozen. A poignant moment sees her looking over an old photograph from a 1992 ritual featuring rows of shamans dressed in a vibrant red smiling broadly for the camera. The first row and much of the second are already gone, Panay laments, and as we can see there are only old women remaining with no new recruits following Panay in the 20 years since she’s been with them. Even one of the older women confesses that she would actually like to give up being a Sikawasay, it is after all quite a physically taxing activity with the emphasis on ritual singing and dance, but she fears being punished with illness and so continues. This lack of legacy seems to weigh heavily on Sera, the most prominent among the shamans, who breaks down in tears complaining that she often can’t sleep at night worrying that there is no one behind them to keep their culture alive save Panay who is then herself somewhat overburdened in being the sole recipient of this traditional history as she does her best to both preserve and better record it through academic study. 

It’s a minor irony then much of her recordings exist on the obsolete medium of VHS, but one of the other old ladies is at least hopeful while taking part in the documentary that people might be able to see their rituals on their televisions in their entirety and the culture of the Sikawasay will not be completely forgotten. Panay expresses frustration that, ironically, their own culture is often explained back to them by external scholars from outside of the community, while another Amis woman praises her implying that their own traditional culture is something they have to relearn rather than simply inheriting. An old lady who says her husband was once a shaman though her son neglected his shamanic nature and left to study describes the Sikawasay as the “real Amis people”, vowing never to give up on shamanism though acknowledging there’s nothing much she could do about it if it disappears. In any case, through Yang’s documentary at least and Panay’s dedicated research, the rituals of the Sikawasay have been preserved for posterity even if their actuality risks extinction in the face of destructive modernity. 

Path of Destiny streams in the UK 28th November to 5th December as part of Taiwan Film Festival UK

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Looking For? (你找什麼?, Chou Tung-yen, 2017)

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“Looking for?” (你找什麼?, Nǐ Zhǎo Shénme?) is a common enough ice breaker on gay dating apps but when you get right down to it it’s a difficult one to answer. Struggling with the question himself as someone who came to the app scene fairly late, director Chou Tung-yen interviewed 60 men from all around the world to ask them what it is they’ve been looking for, why they use dating apps, and how they really feel about them. 

As might be assumed, many of the men are using the apps for casual hook-ups citing the convenience as a major motivating factor. In the old days you wrote letters and hoped to get a reply to your PO box, or you went to a bathhouse, or invested time in someone at a bar, but now you just exchange messages and get what you need when you need it. One older user even likens the experience to that of a supermarket or even ordering fast food, an entirely disposable satisfaction of needs. He’s not necessarily making a criticism, but others ask if the commodification of the community is really a good thing. Most assume that in a more open society and most especially within your own community there ought to be more freedom to be your authentic self, but the apps are so interested in finding a perfect match that they try to force those who use them inside their narrow lines, tagged as a particular brand with some feeling as if they have to change themselves to be “marketable” or no one is ever going to be interested in them. 

Social media of all kinds can foster feelings of inadequacy, but paradoxically others report that they use dating apps precisely in order to boost their self esteem. They like it when people like their photos and enjoy the feeling of being desirable, counting the messages roll in from various suitors to whom they may or may not choose to reply. Those who’d previously felt themselves unattractive have learned to find their niche and become more comfortable in their bodies able to own their sensuality in all areas of their lives. But then some have run the other way, obsessively working out becoming perhaps dangerously addicted to online praise as they continue to alter their physicality to better conform to an external idea of conventional attractiveness. 

And then there are the other dark sides, the inherent danger and the potential toxicity of a party culture that encourages excessive drug use. One young man who appears only in silhouette, his voice disguised, reveals that he thoughtlessly had unprotected sex while high, while another man explains that he eventually decided to leave rave culture behind after a friend took his own life while under the influence and another died of a short illness caused by longterm drug use during which his friends continued to take him out partying despite knowing that he was seriously ill. 

The man whose face appears in silhouette laments that he no longer thinks it’s possible to find true love online, though there are those for whom that is exactly what they were looking for and some of them seem to have found it. Several couples report that they met through a dating app and then stayed together, even later got married. Others however find that while using the app their desire to find a monogamous partner decreased, they enjoyed the ability to have various experiences instead. Still more are looking for friendship or companionship more than romance, someone just to have dinner or share a deep conservation with. 

Towards the end, one interviewee reveals he no longer uses dating apps because he couldn’t figure out what it was he was looking for. Others drift away from them either because they found a stable relationship, began to age out or lost interest in the scene, whether having figured out what they want(ed) or not. Chou asks each of the respondents what love is, many of them talking wistfully about first love but seemingly jaded about grown-up romance or at least resigned to a cooler kind if perhaps still chasing that first flush of passion. Concentrating mainly on the interview sessions, Chou intersperses brief theatrical dance sequences and shots of himself captured alone at various points of transit in different cities, discovering at least a kind of commonality in the community of dating app users the world over who can understand each other even in the absence of shared language. Chou may not have discovered what it is he’s looking for, but has perhaps learned something else in his voyage through the trials of 21st century dating in that in the end you get out what you put in, which is to say what you’re looking for finds you whether you recognise it or not. 

Looking For? streams in the UK via Rio Player 20th – 26th November as part of this year’s Queer East.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Vampire Clay (血を吸う粘土, Soichi Umezawa, 2017)

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The artist consumed by their art is a potent motif, creation and destruction two sides of the same coin, but there’s rarely been a painter attacked by the canvas quite as literally as the sculptors of Vampire Clay (血を吸う粘土, Chi wo Su Nendo) are depleted by their material. The first feature from practical effects specialist Soichi Umezawa is refreshingly unpretentious, unabashed schlock designed to showcase Umezawa’s obvious skill in stop motion and prosthetics but it does perhaps have a point to make in the legacy of embittered artistry and frustrated dreams of those whose art is never recognised. 

Middle-aged sculptress Aina (Asuka Kurosawa) flees the duplicitous Tokyo art scene after being betrayed in love by her no good husband who also runs a studio specialising in training students to gain admission into one of Japan’s many exclusive art schools. In fact, Umezawa somewhat strangely opens with a title card revealing the comparatively small percentage of pupils each school accepts in contrast to the large number of applications, neatly setting up the desperation and sense of inadequacy that plagues most of our heroes, Aina included. Retreating to the country she sets up shop in a small shed which is later ravaged by an earthquake, leading to her discovery of a buried tin filled with mysterious clay and other artistic accoutrements left behind, she assumes, by the previous occupant. The trouble starts when errant student Kaori (Kyoka Takeda), who had been studying at a workshop in Tokyo, returns earlier than expected much to the chagrin of rival Reina (Ena Fujita) and discovers a new pupil has borrowed her clay. Predictably, she decides to use some from the mysterious bag, reviving the evil with water and discovering that somehow this magic substance seems to have upped her game. 

Umezama continues to flag the urban rural divide, the students beginning turn against Aina believing that it’s her time in Tokyo which has given Kaori a leg up, something that further wounds Aina in her sense of professional pride as she channels her rage and frustration into moulding her pupils into top candidates as a means of besting her ex. The sculptors knead their frustrated desires into the clay, it feeds on their misery and disappointment. This particular clay, however, is more cursed than most in that it is apparently infected by some kind of toxic disease which plagued the previous owner, symptomatic of the degree to which his art, or more pointedly the refusal of others to recognise it, destroys him. 

Aside from that there are a host of interpersonal problems between the students and their teacher. As the only male sculptor points out, they are both classmates and enemies as they are forced to compete against each other for the prize of recognition in the form of admission to an art school. Meanwhile, he is also the subject of a love triangle, refusing a homemade bento from an admirer in favour of one from another, this essential act of emotional betrayal later providing an in route for the murderous clay. 

Nevertheless, Umezawa is not so interested in the implications of the interpersonal drama as its potential for bloody action. The clay works its way into the bones of the sculptor, consuming and possessing them in a series of pleasingly retro, Cronenbergian practical effects. “I don’t want to lose my individuality to convention” Reina had snapped back in insisting that this small rural school suits her fine despite having just been given a dressing down for the “conventionality” of her final assignment. The clay, perhaps, attempts to rob them of their individuality, turning them into a mindless plastic mass fuelled only by negative emotions, thirsty for blood and hellbent on destruction. Somewhat incomprehensibly, a failed sculptor turned restaurateur convinces the original owner of the clay that his creepy creations will sell like hot cakes to hospitality establishments in the city, allowing his final humanoid legacy to become a kind of Frankensein’s child carrying all his rage and resentment into the future but attacking, it seems, other marginalised artists rather than the hated Tokyo arts scene which is the real target of his ire. Aina, having for the moment neutralised the clay, considers unleashing it against her ex, bringing the grudge full circle in its own, ironic, way but also consumed by resentment and jealousy. The “toxic waste” of artistic disappointment refuses to die, burrowing its way underground even as the responsible attempt to bury it, lying in wait for the next tortured artist willing to sell their soul for illusory success.

US release trailer (English subtitles)

Pakeriran (巴克力藍的夏天, Lekal Sumi Cilangasan, 2017)

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Two lost youngsters reconnect with their roots over one idyllic summer in Lekal Sumi Cilangasan’s gentle exploration of culture and identity, Pakeriran (巴克力藍的夏天). Produced by the Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Foundation, Sumi’s gentle drama finds a city boy quite literally thrown in at the deep end when he returns home to his indigenous community while bonding with an equally lost young woman chasing the legacy of a father who abandoned her. 

As the film opens, university student Futing (Matam Hidaw) is lost in thought, gazing a pretty classmate and hardly listening to his friends as they plan the road trip they’ll be taking over summer vacation. That evening, however, he gets a panicked phone call from his mother telling him that his grandfather has been taken ill and he’s to come home as soon as possible. Futing doesn’t get a chance to explain he’s made other plans, and so finds himself on the first available train, his friend taking off with the girl he likes on the back of his bike as they drop him at the station before setting off on their summer adventure. He’s quite annoyed therefore when he arrives and discovers his grandfather is fine, he just sprained his ankle, but the rest of the family have taken off on holiday and left him to look after grandpa who is quite keen that Futing take part in the upcoming Sacepo festival in his stead. 

Having spent most of his life in the city, Futing no longer understands the local dialect nor does he know very much about traditional customs. Hanging around shyly outside after being instructed to attend a meeting to discuss the festival, Futing is brought in by an older man, Kacaw, who becomes his mentor translating for him as the elders heckle, disappointed that he can’t understand them and exasperated that he has no manners, failing to realise that he as the youngest should be pouring them wine and doing it in ceremonial manner. Tripping up on his way home he’s rescued by Lisin (Ipun Kanasaw), a young woman taking a working holiday at a cafe where they showcase the local cuisine for tourists, but leaves abruptly when he’s recognised by an old friend of his mother’s who asks him to explain the Sacepo festival to the newcomer, too embarrassed to admit he really has no idea what it’s all about. 

Lisin, meanwhile, is also on a quest to reconnect with her history through following in the footsteps of her foodie father who apparently went out one day and never came back. She thinks he might have passed through his village, so she’s patiently absorbing all it has to offer while quietly learning to assume responsibility, eventually forced to take charge when her mentor, Mrs Jiang (Ilid Kaolo), is delayed on her way home. Predictably enough, Futing’s desire to rediscover his ancestral culture is spurred on by his growing attraction to Lisin whose interest in the local customs fuels his own. Suddenly, he becomes invested in the idea of seizing his manhood through completing the ritual, determined to learn how to catch a fish in the traditional way, cooking it in water heated with rocks warmed by the sun. 

The titular Pakeriran refers to a rock island on the far side of an inlet which, it was said, the young could prove themselves men by swimming to and warriors by swimming around. Later, Futing discovers there are other, easier ways to reach Pakeriran but then that isn’t really the point. Through reconnecting with his culture, Futing develops a new respect for the natural world, concerned by all the rubbish he finds floating in the water some of it irresponsibly dropped by non-indigenous fishermen. An attempt to confront one of them brings home to him his marginalised position within Taiwanese society when he’s not quite arrested by local police who accuse him of illegally fishing on his ancestral land without a proper licence after being tipped off by the petty fisherman. Originally resentful, watching the photographs of his friends having fun on their trip roll in over social media, Futing comes to embrace his heritage as a member of the indigenous community as he comes of age, gaining a new appreciation for his place in the world. Beautifully showcasing the traditional culture of the Amis people, Pakeririan offers a rare insight into an all too often hidden side of Taiwanese life through the eyes of the two youngsters as they discover new sides of themselves though reconnecting with their heritage.

Pakeriran streams in the US Oct. 2 – 4 as part of Asian Pop-Up Cinema & TACCGC’s @Home with Taiwan Cinema: Love & Hope

Original trailer (English & Traditional Chinese subtitles)

A Touch of Spring (Un printemps d’ailleurs / 春色撩人, He Xiao-Dan, 2017)

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When you don’t know what to do, you go home, but what if home doesn’t quite exist for you anymore or trying to go back there only reminds you of all the reasons you chose to leave? Then again, perhaps “home” exists for just that purpose, a place you’re supposed to go to think things through before you ago back out into the world again. The heroine of He Xiao-Dan’s Chinese-Canadian co-production A Touch of Spring (Un printemps d’ailleurs / 春色撩人, Chūnsè Liáorén) is waiting for the thaw, trying to come to terms with the failure of her marriage and the unexpected directions her life may be about to take with or without her consent. 

Fang (Yan Wen-si) has been living in Montreal for the past 10 years, having married a French-Canadian man, Eric (Émile Proulx Cloutier). Her marriage, however, has become distant and she suspects Eric may be having an affair while a considerable strain has also been placed on the relationship because of their inability to conceive a child. When an attempt to confront Eric about his infidelity turns violent and counselling proves no help, it becomes obvious that the only option is divorce. Fang travels back to her hometown in Dazu which she hasn’t visited in the decade since she left and tries to figure things out while staying with her rather gruff grandfather (Cui Kefa). 

Immediately on her arrival, a taxi driver mistakes Fang for a tourist, but even on being told she’s a local quickly realises she’s been away a long time. Her home is not quite her home anymore. Fang’s grandmother has passed away and her grandfather has got married again to a cheerful, warmhearted woman who seems completely odds with the rest of Fang’s sad and grumpy family. The biggest issue is that Fang has not disclosed why she’s come back to China and so everyone is keen to ask about Eric, the lack of children, and her fancy ex-pat life in Canada. 

In fact, Fang is frequently described as the family’s most successful member precisely because she has moved abroad where she owns her own home and, they assume, lives a much higher standard of life. Meaning well, Fang’s new grandmother puts her foot right in it when she tells Fang that the highest success for a woman lies in marrying a good man. More in tune with modern Western values, Fang objects in part to the obvious sexism of her grandparents’ worldview, but it of course also touches a nerve as she finds herself trying to process the failure of her marriage while being too ashamed to admit that her “perfect” life in Canada wasn’t quite so perfect after all. Having separated from Eric, she’s determined to prove that she can make it on her own and doesn’t need a man to get by but is also lonely and feeling lost. Grandma provides some unexpected wisdom when she reveals that she lost her first husband in the Cultural Revolution and came to the same conclusion as Fang resolving never to rely on a man ever again, but is grateful to have met Fang’s grandfather who, despite his gruff appearance, is gentle and caring and has always looked after her. 

Meanwhile, in the therapist’s office, Eric struggled to come up with something good about his relationship with Fang other than that she loved him, supported his work, and took care of their relationship. Eric doesn’t seem to have been a very good husband, self-involved in the extreme, but the therapist is quick to ask somewhat insensitively if it wasn’t Fang’s inability to have children that has destroyed the marriage, a claim Fang rejects because she hasn’t yet accepted that she may be infertile. Despite her rejection of her grandmother’s patriarchal sexism, Fang craves motherhood, bonding with the lonely little girl of her cousin who has “abandoned” her with her parents to work alone in Chongqing. Fang has ambivalent feelings towards Hong who apparently “fell” into a life of drugs and backstreet gambling after a traumatic street attack and the rejection that followed it from her policeman father too embarrassed to report that his own daughter had been the victim of a crime. Something in Fang admires Hong’s subversive independence and wants to help her, especially if it helps her quit gambling, but she also resents that she has given up the thing Fang most wants in deciding not to raise her daughter but leave her with her parents. 

Reconnecting with an old friend who’s become a Buddhist and learned to respect simplicity in life begins to shift her perspective. “How can I stop this endless suffering?” she screams into a ravine. He tells her Buddha has a plan for that, but she might not like it. She repllies that she only believes in the reality right before her eyes. According to grandpa, young people suffer because they think relationships are all romance when the reality is “tolerance”. Grandma, by contrast, tells her that the secret of life is learning to see the beauty in every thing. “It’s good to be alive”, she sighs, “It’s a pity life is so short”. Spring finally comes to Fang’s life as she begins to clear up the literal mess of her failed relationship, no longer feeling like a powerless passenger on the great train of life but finally in charge of its direction. 

A Touch of Spring streams in the US Sept. 29 – Oct. 3 as part of the 11th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Who Killed Cock Robin (目擊者, Cheng Wei-Hao, 2017)

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“Everything in this world has already been decided, no one is free” according to a jaded, psychopathic killer in Tag Along director’s Cheng Wei-Hao fatalistic neo-noir, Who Killed Cock Robin (目擊者, Mùjīzhě) . As the English title implies, each has their part to play when it comes to the orchestration of death, but the peculiar confluence of circumstances sees the central “witness” corrupted by his decision to alter his position, becoming part of the story in a way a journalist never should.

At 30-ish, Chi (Kaiser Chuang Kai-hsun) is a jaded paparazzo tuning in to the police scanners for the latest scoop on potentially scandalous crime. He thinks he’s hit the jackpot in pulling off the road and discovering a local politician in a car wreck with a beautiful young woman he later realises is a top glamour model, but his insistence on pushing the story without proper background checks comes back to haunt him when the politician comes out with documents proving he married the model in secret some months earlier and signals his intention to sue. All of a sudden, Chi’s bright future is slipping away from him. His mentor retires, and he’s abruptly made redundant, effectively fired for the problematic politician scoop. It’s at that point he starts looking back at photos he took of another car crash nine years earlier when he was still a rookie and realises his boss may have deleted some behind his back. 

As his mentor, Chiu (Christopher Lee Meng Soon), eventually tells him, Chi isn’t the sort of man who’d fight for justice for someone he didn’t even know. He’s in this for petty revenge in hoping to expose some kind of scandal involving the boss who got him fired. He’s also, however, meditating on the earnest young man he once was and the jaded hack he’s since become. As an intern he wanted to do hard journalism and make a difference, but after falling in with Chiu he became corrupted by urbanity, seduced by the fancy suits, celebrity contacts, and stylish parties. He does his business by forming “relationships” with useful people such as law enforcement officers though homosocial bonding, i.e. drinking and women. 

Chiu also, perhaps ironically, thanks his wife for helping him make the “relationships” which have enabled his successful life. These complex networks of interwoven corruption are what keeps the city running, but they’re also a web that can be unravelled to reveal the dirty secrets at its centre. Chi seems to know that fate is coming for him. “Things that happened to you come round in circles” he drunkenly laments on learning not only that the used car he was duped into buyng is an illegally remodelled vehicle but also that the chassis belongs to the one from the accident he witnessed all those years ago. Car accidents plague him, as if implying his life is one long car crash bracing for the impact. 

Yet, as Chiu cautions him, he only has a part of the truth. He is lied to and misled, left to reply on the reporter’s instinct he has long since allowed to become rusty. His investigation places others in danger, not least a young woman who was beginning to think she’d escaped the accident’s wake and built a nice life for herself free of past transgression. But Chi still has to make a choice, try to expose this world of infinite corruption for what it is while accepting his own complicity within it, or decide to unsee what he worked so hard to uncover and go back to being the hack reporter dependent on that same web of corruption whose entanglement he was so keen to escape. 

“I just want to know the truth” Chi claims, as a good reporter should, but his subjects ask him “what’s the point?”, “everyone wants to know the truth, but once you know then what?”.  It’s a good question, and one perhaps that Chi doesn’t know the answer to, reducing his dilemma to a sheepish grin and a cynical joke. “I prefer to remember happier things”, he admits. An infinitely compromised figure, Chi finds himself on dark and fatalistic path towards discovering, at least, his own truth. “I believe in myself” he later tells an equally corrupted colleague but something tells us we perhaps should not. 

Who Killed Cock Robin streams online for free in the US as part of Asian Pop-Up Cinema’s Mini-Focus: Taiwan Cinema Online on June 11.

International trailer (English subtitles)