iFilm Connections: Asia & Pacific

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Edward Yang,

Taipei Story

Qingmeizhuma (1985)

Ah Lung and Shu-chen are lovers who go back a long way. Ah Lung is in the textile business, Shu-chen is a high-level executive. Ah Lung, a businessman of the old fashion, is a baseball fan and has trophies to prove his former prowess in the game. With Shu-chen, however, he is an emotional bankrupt.

Shu-chen's world is quite different from Ah Lung's. Her father is a failed businessman who spends his time hiding from creditors. He hopes that Ah Lung and Shu-chen will help him out of his financial predicament. Shu-chen's status is that of an upwardly mobile, independent career woman but she cannot disentangle herself from the problems of others close to her. Her younger sister is a dropout, a representative of youths who have lost all direction in life. For them, the economically prosperous environment affords avenues for escape in gambling halls, karaoke oars, discos, pubs, joy-riding, brawls, etc.

However, when the pressure of modern life falls upon any individual, young or old, he or she seeks a way to escape. When Shu-chen loses her job, Ah Lung has to swallow his memories of former glories. The two lovers drift apart in their cultural and social perceptions. Contradictions between them come out to the force. Ah Lung feels helpless in the face of dramatic change as his old-world values and morale give way to materialism, modernization and mechanization. As economic pressures press upon them, the relationship worsens and both feel there is no way out.

One night, in a chance dispute with a young man, Ah Lung is stabbed with a knife; unable to get help, he is left to bleed to death on a lonely street. Shu-chen has found a job with her former employer who thinks of starting big. Inside a large, empty office, Shu-chen contemplates a future even richer in material gains but without the intimacy of personal relationships.