Tag: Mandarin

Deep Quiet Room (深度安靜, Shen Ko-shang, 2025)

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Reeling after his wife’s unexpected suicide, a bereft husband begins to discover the destructive effects of unresolved trauma amid the oppressive patriarchal social system of Taiwanese society in Shen Ko-shang’s hard-hitting drama, Deep Quiet Room (深度安靜, shēndù ānjìng). The “deep quiet room” of the title is both literal in referring to that at the back of the couple’s flat they had designated as a nursery where pregnant wife Yu-ting cocoons herself, and to the psychological space into which her husband cannot enter.

Told from Yu-Ming’s (Joseph Chang) perspective, the film centres on his sense of confusion and inability to understand the psychological changes that his wife underwent following her pregnancy which led to her taking her own life. Through repeated flashbacks, it becomes clear that Yu-Ting (Ariel Lin) was suffering from depression and uncertain whether she wanted to give birth to this child. Though everything may have seemed normal on the surface, we can see that there is something not quite right in the way that Yu-Ting interacts with her parents while cryptic allusions are made to two other sisters who are for some reason no longer part of the family while Yu-Ting’s mother is otherwise an entirely silent and passive presence.

This silence and passivity may stand in for that of Taiwanese women, or least those of her generation, who find themselves powerless against male authority figures such as husbands and fathers. When Yu-Ting expresses anxiety that their baby may be a girl, Yu-Ming assumes that his overbearing mother has said something to her reflecting a cultural bias that favours sons over daughters. Yu-Ming appears to not to share it while the doctors at the hospital also stress that the sex is irrelevant as long as the child is healthy. But when Yu-Ting’s father (Chin Shih-chieh) states that girls are better, there is something uniquely chilling in his words that further deepens Yu-Ting’s dread and sense of responsibility in bringing a little girl into this kind of world.

The father cannot be questioned and his home is filled with silence. This is the deep quiet room in which the film seems to suggest all Taiwanese women are to one degree or another trapped inside. Yu-Ming necessarily exists on the other side of it and is to some extent unaware of its existence. He is frustrated that his wife shuts him out and desperately wants to her to share with him what it is that makes her so unhappy and prevents her from embracing the kind of domestic happiness that he is seeking to create. When Yu-Ting unexpectedly snaps that she hates herself for being unable to abandon her father, Yu-Ming seems bemused and replies that it’s a daughter’s filial duty to care for him. His own decision, which seems odd to others, to continue caring for Yu-Ting’s father, who has dementia and therefore can no longer answer for whatever he may have done in the past, is another symptom of his desire to maintain this ideal of a traditional family. 

What he discovers therefore implodes Yu-Ming’s conception of the values that he assumed underpinned his society and his own role within them. His eventual decision to abandon Yu-Ting’s father is symbolic of an ultimate desire to reject and escape from this patriarchal superstructure of which he has also been a part. Yu-Ting’s two sisters chose other paths to escaping their trauma, the oldest spending most of her adult life in a psychiatric institution, and the younger fleeing abroad severing all ties with her family. She has married a man who is not Taiwanese and is living a happy family life overseas. Informed of her mother and sister’s deaths, she simply replies “R.I.P” and that it’s no longer any concern of hers. She has sealed her childhood off in its own deep quiet room and now refuses to open the door, suggesting that the only path to survival lies in exiting this system entirely and never looking back.

As such Shen paints a fairly bleak view of the contemporary society as mired in outdated patriarchal social codes while women like Yu-Ting are left with no recourse. She cannot share this part of herself even with those close to her, not even with her sisters who suffered the same way she did but have each withdrawn themselves into different kinds of isolation, and must therefore carry the burden alone. There is however a glimmer of light in the otherwise grim conclusion that suggests a desire at least to exorcise this trauma by abandoning the patriarchal order and building something new in its place.

Deep Quiet Room screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

Last Night in Taipei (明日的過客, Kuo Cheng-chui, 2025)

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Three old friends who haven’t seen each other in years are forced to confront the reality of their lives after a chance encounter in Kuo Cheng-chui’s Last Night in Taipei (明日的過客, míngrì dì guòkè). Less an odyssey through the midnight city, the film is really more about finding accommodation with a sense of middle-aged regret and letting go of what might have been, though it does not necessarily seem that any of them are really happier after dealing with their unresolved feelings.

Blanche’s marriage has begun to turn cold owing to her husband’s deference to his mother who is upset that they have yet to conceive a child and continually dropping off Chinese medicine to help them along. After arguing with her husband Ben when a date night is abruptly cancelled she decides to stay in the city alone where she immediately runs into an ex, Jake, who is on a trip home from Paris where he as lived for the last few years. To begin with, it isn’t quite clear whether Blanche has actually met him at all or is just fantasising about what her life would be like if she’d stayed with him rather than ending up Ben whose chief advantage seems to be his wealth.

But Jake is similarly feeling lost in that he feels out of place in both Paris and Taipei and is perceived as a foreigner in both places. Meanwhile, he’s harbouring unresolved feelings about the end of his relationship with Blanche. While wandering though the city, the pair walk into a bar where their old friend Axin is currently working. His current girlfriend, Mao Mao, later joins them, but their relationship is not all it seems as Mao Mao essentially hired Axin to play the part of her boyfriend for 99 days to make an ex jealous and is now having difficulty dealing with the end of the arrangement.

The trio met when they were all aspiring actors, and they have to one extent or another each failed to fulfil their dreams. Only Axin is seriously persevering with performing, but he to is coming to the conclusion that he has failed as an actor and it’s time for him to leave Taipei. Blanche, too, regrets not having had the opportunity to play a proper role and is feeling unsatisfied with her married life. She wonders if this is all there really is and her entire life is already decided. Perhaps she only stays with Ben because it’s become convenient while the risks of leaving outweigh the benefits. Jake too always felt as if Taiwan was a liminal space, not somewhere he’d stay indefinitely, so he never put down roots. He reflects how much the city has changed, almost if it did so deliberately to give them memories as these spaces seem to retreat from them back into the past. 

The frequent references to missiles and intrusions into their airspace echo this sense of restless anxiety that this current existence might soon disappear or be taken from them. The sense of impending doom forces the three friends to reassess their bonds and missed connections providing an opportunity for at least partial emotional honesty even if these unresolved feelings are not fully addressed. Mao Mao too must reevaluate what she was looking for in her relationship with Axin in which he too was perhaps merely putting off the act of confronting himself and his life.

Though they may each discover a way of moving forward, no one seems all that happy about it. Blanche considers leaving her marriage, but ultimately stays perhaps because she lacks the courage to actually do it and resigns herself to an unfulfilling future. Jake still feels adrift and blames himself for the failure of his relationship with Blanche, realising that he let her down out of fear and immaturity. Axin too decides to move on, but is left with a sense of regret, while Mao Mao too can only resolve to start over again from day one. In some ways the friendship between them might have been repaired with the air cleared, but on the other hand as Axin says real friends don’t necessarily need to be in contact all the time and each seems to be left a little lonelier even than before in having closed a door to the past with seemingly none to open to the future.

Last Night in Taipei screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (dialogue free)

Kiss Me My Ghost Friend (啵me之我的青春住了鬼, Chen Ta-pu, 2026)

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A young director finds himself unwittingingly bonding with a ghost after agreeing to stage a performance in a disused theatre in Chen Ta Pu’s romantic dramedy, Kiss Me, My Ghost Friend (啵me之我的青春住了鬼, bō me zhī wǒ de qīngchūn zhù le). The theatre in question turns out to be haunted, not just by its past and legacy but by young woman betrayed in love whose story dovetails neatly with the tale he has been asked to tell.

To that extent, Jim is also haunted though only by the spectre of his father, a once prominent playwright who has become a recluse. His Bo-Chuan was to be a new and revolutionary kind of theatre updating traditional opera for a new age. It was, however, never staged and following the death of his grandfather, Jim’s mother wants to have the ASI theatre torn down. Jim is less than keen on accepting the job, in part because he is embarrassed by his privilege and prefers to keep the fact that he has a financial safety net in coming from a wealthy and prominent family secret, and because he does not really want to reckon with his family legacy.

The irony is that Jim’s previous show was an interactive ghost experience set in a disused building. Unfortunately, it failed to find an audience and the last performance had to be cancelled. After a year with no success, Jim’s theatre troupe is forced to disband and he’s dumped by his girlfriend, formerly the troupe’s lead actress. He wanted to explore the meaning of life through a ghost story, but laments that the audience just wanted entertainment. He has no idea that Shi is a ghost and originally believes her to be the assistant managing the theatre, but it’s true enough that she has a connection to the story of Bo-Chuan, not just in her involvement with the original production but the ways in which it mirrors her own life as a woman left in limbo, haunted by the spectre of lost love.

Bo-Chuan too waited 18 years for the man she loved to return, though while alive Shi had her doubts about the story. She thought this tale of love and sacrifice was too old-fashioned and bound to destructive patriarchal mores. If it were her, she says, she’d spend the 18 years looking for value in her life rather than waiting around for man. She and Jim’s father decide to change the end of the play, but still, Shi became a lonely ghost trapped in the theatre that itself became a relic of the past. Though she can no longer play a leading role, helping Jim stage another Bo-chuan with an ending of his own allows her to restore the theatre to what it once was, purifying it of its evil spirits and overcoming her romantic trauma.

Jim too gets a second chance at his artistic career having previously decided to give up the theatre after his repeated failures. Though a potential romance with Shi never gains traction, she does however lead him towards artistic fulfilment in the acceptance of his legacy as his father’s son as they finish the play together. The other members of Jim’s troupe too all come to accept Shi even after realising that she is a ghost. They too had all be financially inconvenienced by Jim’s failure, though unlike his girlfriend his troupe chose to stand by him and return for this gig in an apparently haunted theatre which nevertheless offers huge financial rewards. Unlike Bo-chuan, Ying Ying wouldn’t wait, but her place is quickly taken by Shi who patiently teaches Jim’s actors how to work with this more classical material. Though Jim’s mother may want to tear the theatre down because it reminds her of a past she’d rather forget and symbolises her guilt, in the end it becomes a place of healing that allows all to move on from the past while giving Jim’s theatre troupe a new place to belong along with a brighter artistic future rooted firmly in the past.

Kiss Me My Ghost Friend screens as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend (宗师叶问2, Li Liming, 2026)

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Ip Man returns once again to fight injustice in colonial Hong Kong as a corrupt fixer tries to intimidate the local Martial Arts Society out of its headquarters in order to open a Western-style boxing gym. Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend (宗师叶问2, zōngshī Yè Wèn) is technically a sequel to 2019’s Ip Man: Kung Fu Master, though only in that it is directed by Li Liming and stars Dennis To Yu-Hang in the title role.

This outing for the folklore hero has a little more story to it than most as Ip Man returns to Hong Kong from Foshan to open a martial arts school to find himself a little less than welcome given that interest is martial arts is declining, schools have closed, and the last thing many of those remaining want is more competition. In order to be accepted by the local Martial Arts Society, Ip Man has to pass three trials, though it’s clear the current head, Hong, has begun to veer from the path of righteousness as he deliberately makes things difficult for Ip Man and even tries to cheat before the trial is interrupted by the arrival of the real villain, Pike, a corrupt British businessman valued by the colonial authorities who are dependent on his money to fund their election campaigns. 

Thus the enemies Ip Man is fighting are the forces of imperialism and capitalism as represented by Pike. Realising that they share a common enemy, Hong eventually teams up with Ip Man to defend the dock workers led by Ip Man’s friend Jinsong whose livelihoods are under threat if Pike manages to take over the port. Martial artists and workers are the foundation of the Chinese people, Hong intones while pledging to reject foreign influence in fear that allowing the British in will only lead to a total takeover. His underling, Yihu, meanwhile feels differently and tries to persuade Hong to work with the British believing that he would still be able to maintain management of the Zhonghua building. The fact is that the society is broke and can no longer support its members. Yihu’s mother is seriously ill and needs expensive medical treatment that the society can no longer fund while he also feels resentful and under valued by Hong after being passed over for promotions and generally ignored.

Yihu’s resentment and sense of inferiority make him the perfect target for seduction by Pike after which he undergoes a total personality transformation in becoming a rather flamboyant gangster with a fashionable haircut and sunglasses which generally seem to be used as a symbol of evil within the film. A crazed henchman sent after Ip Man who uses meat hooks as weapons also wears distinctive sunglasses and is driven by greed rather than righteousness. He tells Pike that his initial investment only covers knocking off Ip Man, which he has so far failed to do, and that taking out Yihu once he’s served his purpose is going to cost extra. 

Nevertheless Pike seems to have half the police station under his thumb though we only ever see Chinese officers. Though the first is pragmatic, he also tries to mitigate Pike’s influence while female officer Mei attempts to directly oppose it even while told that Pike is effectively above the law. She is also battling entrenched sexism as her superior advises her going against Pike might be doubly dangerous as there are already those who do not like the idea of women serving in the police force and may use her obstinacy as a reason why they shouldn’t. The martial arts world, by contrast, is depicted as much more egalitarian with the first of the masters Ip Man is asked to fight a woman skilled in unarmed combat. Likewise, when Ip Man eventually opens his school, two little girls excitedly ask to join so that they too can protect their community with their fists if necessary. 

IP Man subversively suggests that one might have to use their fists for justice. But at the same time, there is an awkwardness involved in that Mei and the police force that has resisted corruption become justice’s arbiters at the same time as she commits what might actually be an extrajudicial execution even if in self-defence. Nevertheless, the encroaching forces of capitalist imperialism have been beaten back with Ip Man installed as the leader of the Martial Arts Society. Though the film’s most impressive action scene may be its first as Ip Man faces off against a female master while trying to keep a candle alight, its does its best to live up to the expectations of its name while paying homage to classic fights from the franchise’s history.

Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend is released on Digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD July 14 courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Furious (火遮眼, Kenji Tanigaki, 2025)

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A gang of child traffickers kidnap the wrong man’s daughter in Kenji Tanigaki’s non-stop action thriller, The Furious (火遮眼). Once again set in a fictional South East Asian nation, the film sees two men team up against a world of corruption as the last line of defence rescuing kidnapped kids and returning them to their families but in return incurring the wrath of the powers that be who are all too happy go along with traffickers for the financial benefits it offers.

Wang Wei (Xie Miao) is living in South East Asia while seemingly unable to return to China for unclear reasons with the implication that he is some kind of fugitive. His young daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou), who lives with her grandmother on the Mainland, has been staying with him for the summer and constantly begs Wang either to return to China with her or let her stay here with him. Wang rejects both of these options while insisting that Rainy learn kung fu so that she is able to defend herself in his absence, though she claims that she actually hates it and sees her training only as a means of being able to spend time with her father. 

In some ways, and a little uncomfortably, Wang’s desire to train his daughter for independence is depicted as a rejection of his paternal responsibilities while Rainy rejects it in favour of a more traditional femininity, reusing to get her hair cut short out of fear her classmates will make fun of her. It’s after an argument about the haircut that Rainy is lured by the traffickers having stormed out of the hairdressers while the neighbourhood aunties stop Wang going after her, assuring him that she’s just at that age and needs some space to blow off steam. Rainy’s skills might not be enough to protect herself against the traffickers and may even in a way endanger her when she actively tries to fight adult men much bigger and stronger than herself, but do perhaps give her confidence to continue trying to escape.

Wang, meanwhile, tries to report Rainy’s kidnapping to the police but finds them entirely uninterested with the police chief actively telling him that his complaint is unimportant. Seeing a large wall full of missing child posters convinces him that if he wants his daughter back, he’ll have to get her himself. The film suffers from the decision to have a large part of the dialogue in English with several lines unconvincingly dubbed which is likely intended to play into the idea of this place being a melting pot of cultures and languages in addition to a hub for a crime network stretching across Asia with incidental dialogue from the trafficking gang offered in Tagalog. The implication is then that fail son-in-law Paklung was sent to the US for an international education but is unable to integrate into this gangster society, engaging in the taboo activity of child trafficking and causing his father-in-law to suggest making him the fall guy. Paklung, however, cannot accept this rejection and goes on a sociopathic rampage that ironically destroys the future he had dreaming of.

On the other hand, the resolution lies in a defiance of authority as an earnest police woman gains the courage to turn against the corrupt police chief partly thanks to rising public resentment generated by the disappearance of a reporter who was investigating the trafficking ring and live streams from her husband Navin who is trying to find her. Frustrated father son relationships become something of a theme with giant-baby like henchman Ho also seeking revenge for the death of his father, killed by Paklung’s arrow-wielding minion, Tak (Yayan Ruhian). 

The fact is that no had really cared much about these children because they were poor and were viewed as disposable, though it is surprising in a way that the gang wouldn’t just give up Rainy rather than go to the bother of dealing with Wang. Though he had refused to go back and help the old woman in the opening sequence, telling Rainy that it was none of their business, Wang’s sense of responsibly is reawakened by Rainy’s desire to go back and save the other kids while extending a hand of friendship towards the boy who tricked her in the knowledge that he didn’t really have much choice either and lacked the courage to resist because he was alone and was only trying to survive. The brutal and frenetic action sequences reflect the nihilism of the world of the world around them in which Wang and Navin face attacks from all sides and seemingly immortal opponents while mustering all of their strength and ingenuity to protect those closet to them.

Trailer

Operation Hadal (蛟龙行动, Dante Lam Chiu-Yin, 2025)

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In recent years, Dante Lam has busied himself with a particular brand of Mainland propaganda actioner. Operation Hadal (蛟龙行动, Jiāolóng Xíngdòng) is intended as a kind of thematic sequel to earlier hits Operation Red Sea and Operation Mekong each of which featured the Chinese military springing into action to defend Chinese citizens from a plausible geopolitical threat while reminding the world at large that China will rise to defend itself and its citizens wherever they may be. 

All of which makes Operation Hadal a rather curious addition to the franchise. Unlike previous instalments, it’s set in the near future and revolves around round a completely ridiculous plot to blow up a volcano and destabilise East Asia with a series of what look to be natural disasters. Or so it would seem, the narrative is often incoherent and difficult to follow. If it were any other Chinese military propaganda film, it would doubtless want to show off the capabilities of the nuclear submarine at the film’s centre. The film even includes a quote from Chairman Mao in 1970 that the nation should hurry up and build nuclear submarines as soon as possible, but it’s not all that clear if this sort of submarine actually exists yet and the qualities the crew are most excited about on boarding the brand-new ship are that it’s much more spacious and comfortable to live in, while the fact that it’s much quieter and, therefore, can evade detection more easily is added as an after thought. 

Meanwhile, Captain Zhao Qing (Zhang Hanyu) is seen to make some questionable command decisions such as playing the harmonica on deck in a moment of crisis which is one thing that seems to have particularly upset the target audience. Zhang clarified that the tune he’s playing is a navy song and is intended as a call to arms for the submarine officers, though it doesn’t really play out that way and feels more like a misplaced homage to the western. Chinese technology is even eclipsed at times with the team finding themselves bogged down fighting robot dogs controlled by the other side, the so-called State of Siekerman, which at any rate seems to populated largely by people with American accents.

There is no clear reason why the State of Siekerman wants to destroy Asia with a series of “mid-sized nuclear bombs”, though there is division within the armed forces with some objecting to the plan because it will necessarily destroy the ecoculture of the area which is beneficial for the rest of the planet, leading to a mutiny by those who are in favour of blowing everything up. This sense of division is perhaps supposed to contrast with the intense unity of Chinese forces, in the same way as the friendship between Zhao Qing and the Admiral back on land is contrasted with that of the two State of Siekerman commanders who disagree about strategy.

The film’s biggest weakness is, however, a lack of characterisation among the Jiaolong team who are often indistinguishable due to the heavy equipment they are wearing. Interpersonal drama comes in the form of a man hung up on the death of a friend in a previous mission and his relationship with his fallen comrade’s son that is probably intended as a touching advocation of filial piety but largely gets lost among the chaotic action. The fact that everything comes down to one officer’s listening ability doesn’t seem like a very good advert for Chinese technology, if perhaps praising the abilities of rank and file soldiers to rise to the occasion. Subpar CGI often gets in the way of the action sequences which are the central draw, leaving the film quite literally all sea with no clear idea of what it’s trying to do. Where the violence of Operation Red Sea was realistic and horrifying, there’s a slightly camp quality with villains being dispatched by hatchets to the head or else popped by sliding doors. It’s not much of an advertisement for Chinese military prowess and never really discovers the sense of patriotic heroism that films like these generally rely on.

Operation Hadal is released on Digital in the US on 16th June courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)蛟龙行动,

The Spring Outside the Fence (竹籬笆外的春天, Li Youning, 1985)

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Two young women attempt to ride the waves of a changing Cold War Taiwan in Li Youning’s bittersweet melodrama, Spring Outside the Fence (竹籬笆外的春天, zhúlíbā wài dechūntiān). The titular fence is that of the military dependents’ village where the two women grew up that comes to represent an increasingly distant past and a vision of Taiwan that has all but become obsolete by the film’s conclusion in 1972 in which the nation seems to have abandoned both the US and the idea of reclaiming Mainland China to forge a more independent future.

The film opens in 1949, not long after the Chinese Civil War and nationalist defeat in which Chiang Kai-shek’s forces fled to Taiwan. The military dependents’ village is a settlement for the family members of former KMT soldiers and a rather ramshackle, rundown place. Nevertheless, Ai Hua (Su Ming-ming) says she likes it because the people are kinder there than elsewhere. They’re like one big family with everyone supporting each other. To that extent, one could describe her relationship with best friend Li Lin as “sisterly”, though there are hints in her longing gazes that suggest her affection for her may lean towards the romantic. When Li Lin begins dating their childhood friend He Kang, Ai Hua abruptly agrees to go out with another boy she’s previously turned down only to later admit there is “no chemistry” between them.

That’s partly because he’s a slightly patronising hypocrite who tries to encourage Ai Hua to work on her English so she can study abroad in the US. He gives Ai Hua books on “existentialism”, while He Kang had given her poetry after reading some of her own in the newspaper. When Taiwan is kicked out of the UN, the other boy first broaches the subject with Ai Hua but then drops it saying he thinks it’s probably too difficult for her to understand. Despite his sense of betrayal that America sided with China, he is still studying English and planning to study in the US in order to get ahead. Ironically, capitalism has now become the enemy of right-wing patriotism even among the formerly privileged waishangren whose status has begun to decline. With the Vietnam War coming to a close, the bar in Taipei where Li Lin works as a hostess, and Ai Hua as an accountant, begins to refocus its attentions on chasing Japanese businessmen rather than US forces.

He Kang’s early death can also seen as symbolic of the death of the KMT’s vision of Taiwan. As a child, he’d given a firebrand speech about becoming a fighter pilot like his father to liberate the Mainland with a large picture of Chiang Kai-shek dominating the classroom. The children used to enjoy standing on the air raid shelter watching the planes go by safe in the knowledge that they were protected. For Li Lin, the planes also seemed to symbolise freedom and a world outside of the village. Her room is full of pictures of classic Hollywood stars like James Dean and Clark Gable, while she listens to the Beach Boys and dances to the The Twist aligning her with the anti-communist sensibilities of the KMT. Her love for He Kang is also bound up with this ideology in which the village is only ever really a transient space designed to exist only until the Mainland is retaken and the families return. 

Speaking of her own emotional repression, Ai Hua remarks that she was always envious of Li Lin who was confident in expressing her feelings and having a good time outside the fence while she remained trapped within it. Though Li Lin remains wedded to the past, wearing He Kang’s jacket and the aeroplane necklace he gave her in lieu of a ring, the two women watch the plane carrying Chinese-speaking American airman Michael, whom Li Lin has rejected, fly away with a sense of sadness tempered with optimism. They have now only each other, but have perhaps achieved a kind of self-sufficient independence free of both Mainland China and America in the new nation of Taiwan. 

The Spring Outside the Fence screened as part of this year’s Queer East.

The Butcher’s Blade (手遮天, Liu Wenpu, 2026)

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Laws are meaningless if no one’s prepared to enforce them. According to the opening titles of The Butcher’s Blade (手遮天, shǒu zhē tiān), the Song had a complicated criminal code with lots of rules to be followed. However, in the real world, they only really apply to certain people. Xue Buyi (Liu Fengchao) has been a constable for 10 years but has become a bitter, broken man who feels himself to be a coward for remaining complicit with this corrupt regime.

A courtesan reports the local coffin maker for rape and violence having slashed her face and thereby not just physically and psychologically harmed her, but destroyed her livelihood. The courtesans complain they’ve reported him before and that no one helps them because they’re not the sort of people who matter in this world. Buyi announces he’ll get them justice and does indeed arrest the coffin maker, but the villagers then turn against him. The coffin maker is well connected and Buyi’s boss lets him go. The courtesans are unsurprised but disappointed, while Buyi’s self-loathing only deepens. His pride and masculinity are further eroded when he tries to help a woman selling noodles that he’s fond of fend off an exploitative landlord who’s been upping the rent in an attempt to coerce her into a sexual relationship. Wei simply asks him for the money instead, but Buyi has nary a penny to his name. Deliberately humiliating him, Wei makes Buyi drink flasks of soy sauce in exchange for reducing Erniang’s (Gao Weiman) debt which Buyi does until Erniang puts a stop to it.

Given all that, it’s easy to see why he might turn to the dark side and allow this world to remake him in its image. The war inside him is between his upbringing as a pupil of Eagle Hall, a brutal police training facility designed to churn out thugs who heartlessly carry out the will of the powers that be, and his natural compassion which baulks at the brutal torture and murder expected of him as a law enforcement official. Buyi is directly contrasted with former colleague Li Zhen (Yuan Fufu) who is keen to get him back on side and working for Eagle Hall, while Buyi struggles with himself over the degree of moral comprise he’s comfortable accepting to be one of Huang’s elite policemen. By remaining complicit, he hopes he can get the money to save Erniang’s noodle stall and protect her from Wei, but she quite obviously can’t stand what Buyi is becoming and didn’t envisage having brutal policemen as her main clientele.

There seems to be a subversive allusion to the present day in the world that surrounds Buyi which is filled with corrupt officials and supported by a rotten regime that policemen like him prop up with thuggish authoritarianism, serving the interests of the powerful over those of the people. Buyi finds himself at the centre of conspiracy when he takes a job guarding government funds intended for disaster relief in the hope of getting extra money to help Erniang only to be accused of robbing the place himself. Recruited by former mentor Huang (Chunyu Shanshan), he witnesses his indifference to the disaster victims who have largely fallen into exploitation at the hands of corrupt landowner Wei. Huang plans to sacrifice them for his own personal gain by framing them as a revolutionary army led by a rival official seeking to overturn the regime which he will then heroically surpress. 

Buyi, however, has to decide whether he can really continue going along with all this or rise up to resist it. Liu Wenpu frames Buyi’s intervention in heroic terms in which he’s surrounded by an eerie blue glow and the sound of firecrackers as he finally decides that he can’t let people like Huang continue with their authoritarianism and indifference towards the welfare of the people. His rebellion, however, seems to make himself something of an outlaw condemned to a life of wandering while ultimately pointless. Huang was just one many and now others are trying to use his fate as a means of advancing their own position. The elegantly choreographed fight scenes take on a symbolic quality as Buyi progresses towards his showdown with Huang while battling himself and his inner conflict, torn between the what it takes to succeed in a world as corrupt as this and his essential humanity before finally coming down on the side of justice for all rather than continuing to serve the interests of an exploitative elite.

The Butcher’s Blade is released on Digital in the US on May 4 courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Outsiders (孽子, Yu Kan-Ping, 1986)

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Released at the tail end of martial law, Yu Kan-Ping’s adaptation of Pai Hsien-Yung’s seminal novel Crystal Boys seems to anticipate a coming liberation, but also perhaps that even then not all will be free. The film’s Chinese title, Unfilial Sons (孽子, nièzǐ), hints at the way it, in a certain sense, circles back to a kind of conservatism in which the hero must reconcile with his abusive father for cultural rather than personal or psychological reasons. But at the same time, perhaps this reconciliation will be necessary at the time the present regime falls and speaks more of a need for peace as the authoritarian father must learn to accept that he has a gay son and will end his life alone if hex chooses not to do so.

Li Qing’s (Shao Hsin) father is, in many ways, a symbol of the authoritarian regime in that he is a former KMT soldier who came to Taiwan with Chang Kai-Shek after the Chinese civil war. Filled with notions of toxic masculinity, he kicks Qing out when he is expelled from high school after being caught having sex with a male lab assistant. Screaming at him in the street, he calls him a “degenerate” and tells him never to come home. Yet it seems obvious that Qing’s father has no real power and all his abuses stem from just this fact. His son’s homosexuality calls his own manhood into question, while his violence towards his wife also stems from his insecurity that she will leave him for a better man. She eventually does leave him for a trumpet player, abandoning her two sons the youngest of which dies as a direct result of his father’s neglect. 

Though Qing was a wounded, lonely little boy who felt himself rejected by both parents due to his mother’s obvious preference for his brother, he adopts a maternal position that comparable to that shown to him by “Mama Yang” who takes in “homeless birds” or young gay men who’ve been rejected by their birth families and have nowhere else to go. Qing was kicked out not only of his home but the school too, leaving him educationally disadvantaged. He can only earning a living as a sex worker in the Peace Memorial Park which has become a cruising spot for gay men. Pushed out of the mainstream society and left with nowhere to go, they have repurposed this public space as their own but are not safe even in here given the frequency of police raids. Auntie Mann, the former actress who lives with Yang, asks him where these young men are supposed to go if they can no longer go to the park with the consequence that they decide to formalise their situation by selling Yang’s photo studio and the building Mann owns to open a gay nightclub called The Blue Angel.

The club speaks of a need to carve out one’s own space in a hostile society, but also the commodification of gay life that accompanies greater acceptance. The park was free and money could also be earned there, but here the guests will need to pay because this is, after all, a business in addition to being a community hub. It also seems that for whatever reason, policemen are also drinking here, so it is not completely liberated and its existence depends on not offending the authorities. Nevertheless, it otherwise extends the family forged by Yang and Mann to a wider community of queer people by offering them a safer space in which they can be their authentic selves if only for a short time.

This seems to be true for Mann’s former director who seems to make a point of going everywhere with two very young and attractive women hanging on his arms, but abandons them to flirt with men at the club. Closted movie Hua Kuo-Pao similarly seems to have taken a liking to Qing, but must presumably keep his sexuality secret in order to go on working. Dangers are spoken of regarding the potential violence of obsessive love in a repressed community as Yang cautions Qing about entering an affair with Dragon, a man he meets in the park, who killed his lover Phoenix in a crime of passion and has been a wandering soul ever since having convinced himself never to love again because it would only end in death.

Yu frames murder as a moment of gothic madness as fog rises behind the bridge in the park, which was already a space of darkness and depression symbolising the degree to which these men are already isolated within their society. Another of the young men Yang takes in ties to take his own life after his lover kicks him out. Though the others tell him his boyfriend was not worth dying for, the problem seems to be more that being thrown out again convinced him he had nowhere else to go. If it were not for Yang and Auntie Mann, he would be totally alone. There does seem to be, however, a degree of tension in the relationship between Yang and Auntie Mann in which there exists a deep platonic love that cannot be resolved sexually. Just as he saves the boys, Yang also once saved Mann from an addiction to drugs, though he could not save her film career or hope for feminine fulfilment through marriage. The Blue Angel club finally only possible because of Mann’s acceptance that she will never be an actress again nor marry for love. Yang has been a kind of beard for her, helping her save face and avoid the stigma of being an unattached woman by making it look like there was a man in her life, just as she perhaps provided security for him in ways other than allowing him to rent his shop from her cheaply and have a place to live.

So tying into the film’s title, these new support networks play into a heteronormative vision of the family in which Yang becomes a father figure to Qing and teaches him how to live a more fulfilling, safer life as a gay man in contrast to his birth father’s authoritarian attempts at dominance. Another of the boys eventually leaves with a lover to look for their father in Japan, but seemingly struggles to find him reflecting the way in which each of them search for a more positive parental input having been failed or abandoned by their birth families. What they discover is a sense of brotherhood and solidarity that gives them a place to call home within the community. Nevertheless, the film ends with the symbolic gesture of Qing following Yang’s advice and attempting to reconcile with his father though an “unfilial son”, while his father too seems to have pulled himself together and is readier to accept Qing for who he is. This sense of homecoming for the homeless bird may then play into a code of familial obligation which could itself by oppressive, but also signals a new beginning and the opening up of a more liberated era.

The Outsiders screened as part of this year’s Queer East.

Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe (熊猫计划之部落奇遇记, Derek Hui Wang-Yu, 2026)

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Adorable CGI panda Huhu may have been a symbol of Chinese sovereignty in the original Panda Plan, eventually rescued by Jackie Chan and returned to a panda sanctuary on the Mainland. In Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe (熊猫计划之部落奇遇记, xióngmāo jìhuà zhī bùluò qíyù jì), however, which doesn’t actually have much in common with the first film, she’s more like a surrogate child who must be protected, but not to the extent that it stunts her growth or robs of her of the confidence to make her own decisions, after mysteriously entering the territory of a “magical tribe” where children are expected to independent at six and hugs are taboo.

The humour is distinctly old-fashioned and the way the film treats the hidden indigenous community at its centre, which conveniently speaks Mandarin even if its writing system is apparently different, seems insensitive and out-of-touch. Nevertheless, the problem here seems to be emotional austerity and, by extension, an authoritarian parenting style that ironically leaves children in an arrested state of development. Fairly useless princeling Telu (Yu Yang), who goes around wearing a crown, is ridiculed for addressing the chieftain (Ma Li) as “mom”, which might, in any case, be a little childish though reflects his sense of inadequacy and desire for maternal affection. When Huhu and Jackie arrive in this strange world, the panda-worshipping tribe thinks it’s part of a prophecy that says that disaster will prevail after the Great Creature arrives which could turn to prosperity if only they could ward it off. 

This, however, requires Chan and Huhu to scale an impossible mountain so that Huhu can call the gods from an unreachable summit. Some of the tribesmen claim not to like it that an outsider is guiding Huhu to the mountain and use it to cultivate intrigue by convincing Telu to try and win his mother’s favour by killing Chan and leading Huhu to the mountain himself. Chan, meanwhile, is intent on finding a way back to the regular world as soon as possible, only to end up in a strange relationship with his would-be-assassin. Qiangshan (Qiao Shan) seems to have some kind of Tiresias syndrome and changes sex every time he gets hit on the head. The film treats this as a mildly homophobic joke as Qiangsheng begins to act in stereotypically feminine ways while creating a domestic environment for Chan by taking him into his home, cooking and cleaning for him. 

Nevertheless, the later part of the film is concerned with the necessity of moving on from “outdated” rules such as the prohibition on shows of affection. The chieftain makes a show of smashing the stone tablets to make it clear that they’re setting themselves free from past oppressions to lead lives that are more emotionally healthy. Chan gives them some ironic advice about the importance of good parenting that focuses on encouragement and praise that give the chid the confidence to thrive, rather than punishment and discipline that leave them feeling afraid and insecure leading to poor decision making.

This being a Lunar New Year release, it’s not surprising that the focus is family, though the family in question here increasingly seems to point towards the Chinese people as a whole. Only by standing together can we overcome hardship, Chan tells the tribe while eventually coming up with the idea of a human pyramid as an expression of solidarity that helps the nation reach the summit. We must hug each other tightly, he adds, as the tribe arranges itself into a rugby scrum and the lower levels bear the strain, creating the tension that allows others to climb higher. Little Huhu can’t complete the village’s test of climbing a pole with all the strangers prodding her behind and shouting, but eventually does something similar on her own while chasing a butterfly whose name is later said to be “encouragement.”

The giant Wicker Panda in the tribe’s central square might never come into use, but lends an ominous air to this weird place that is originally not very hospitable to Chan but eventually comes to believe he’s some sort of prophet serving their Great Creature and can help them avert the oncoming catastrophe mostly by teaching them that it’s alright to hug it out and there’s nothing embarrassing about telling your family that you love them. Relatively light on action, the film focuses on bizarre comedy while rooting itself in its wholesome-seeming but perhaps self-serving message of the importance of family, solidarity, and encouraging others rather than putting them down as Chan and Huhu do their best to avert disaster and return to their previous lives.

Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe in released in US cinemas on April 17 courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)