Showtime for Taiwan's Movies

Van Fan plays the lead role in Cape No.7, the second biggest box-office success of all time in Taiwan. (Courtesy of Ars Film Production)

Publication Date：01/01/2009
Byline：OSCAR CHUNG

One Taiwanese blockbuster is rekindling the hopes of the local movie industry.

A crowd of reporters, camera crew and voyeuristic onookers gathered at a beach in Kenting at the southern tip of Taiwan. Oh, yes, pop singer-turned-actor Van Fan was about to swim naked. The excitement mounted as the heartthrob disrobed in the water and swam out to a little golden figurine floating in the sea, a statuette resembling the Oscar given to Academy Award winners. The news reports would have plenty of material for audiences that evening.

Fan performed the stunt to fulfill a promise that he would go skinny-dipping once Cape No.7, in which the pop singer plays the leading role, reached NT$20 million (US$625,000) in ticket sales. He kept his word, although the swim was taken belatedly. That day, the feature film's box office earnings had hit the NT$100 million (US$3.1 million) mark, all within a month of its release on August 22, 2008. By the end of October, the movie had raked in about NT$224 million (US$7 million) at theaters in Taipei alone, roughly half the total for the whole of Taiwan, and well beyond the expectations of all concerned, including director and scriptwriter Wei Te-sheng.

The movie has been so popular that it has been widely pirated. "It's an honor for a locally made film to be pirated," says Jimmy Huang, executive producer of Cape No.7, implying that Taiwanese movies are usually ignored in the market, even by movie pirates.

Cape No.7 is an original story about an improvised rock band set in a present-day town near Kenting. Its main sub-plot weaves in a tale of lost love between a Japanese teacher and a Taiwanese girl during the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). The movie has now sold better than any other Taiwanese-made film or any Chinese-language movie released on the island. On the list of all-time best-selling movies in Taiwan, it is second only to the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster Titanic, which earned NT$760 million (US$26.5 million at the time) locally. The licensing for Cape No.7 has already been sold in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and mainland China.

The commercial success has been accompanied by critical acclaim, too. Although the first line in the film is a profanity aimed at Taipei, the movie won its first awards at the 2008 Taipei Film Festival in early July of that year, picking up the Grand Prize of the Taipei Award section and the Audience Choice Award of the New Talent Competition. Prizes for best movie at the Asian Marine Film Festival in Japan and best narrative at the Hawaii International Film Festival followed. The little golden figurine in Van Fan's hand following his naked swim in Kenting also suggested the film's great ambition to grab a real Oscar at this year's Academy Awards in the foreign-language category.

"Taiwanese movies haven't made me feel so good for a long time until Cape No.7. All the characters are so vividly portrayed and their relationships so well presented," says film critic Michael Mai. "I always hope that local movies can equal Hollywood productions and now I've finally found a Taiwanese director that can create a movie of real commercial value."

Elements such as pop music, a love story and scenes of humor here and there have made the film a commercial success, but most importantly, it has attracted local audiences by embracing the grassroots society of Taiwan, says Peggy Chiao, a film critic and director of the Graduate Institute of Filmmaking at Taipei National University of the Arts. Chiao also refers to the social background behind the amazing box office success of Cape No.7, saying that people have turned to such an upbeat movie as a diversion from the atmosphere of political bickering that has characterized the past 20 years. "The movie's celebratory feel has long been missing in our society," she adds.

In the 1980s, filmmakers in Taiwan started to react against the then government policy of producing politically correct and "morally healthy" movies. As one part of the immense social and political change that swept Taiwan at the time, the directors of the New Wave Cinema movement made new kinds of movies, which echoed the real lives of average Taiwanese people. The films also reflected on historical, social and political issues, and were typified by heavy subject matter and somber storylines.

Compelling  Stories

Cape No.7 producer Jimmy Huang sees some similarities between 2008's blockbuster and these earlier works such as the Hill of No Return (1992) by director Wang Tong, saying both have compelling stories to tell. While Cape No.7 and the Hill of No Return both center on interesting, but ordinary people, however, Hill is set against the backdrop of Japanese rule on the island and is basically a tragedy.

 

Taiwanese directors are turning their attention to interesting and easy-to-understand Taiwanese stories as Orz Boyz. (Courtesy of One Production Film Co.)

As more and more Taiwanese filmmakers focused on such art-house movies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Taiwan's New Wave Cinema won international acclaim. This was especially true for A City of Sadness by Hou Hsiao-hsien, one of the major figures in the movement, after the film won the Golden Lion at the 1989 Venice Film Festival. It was the first time a Taiwanese movie had won a top international film festival, and it stimulated local filmmakers to give precedence to strong personal style. Nevertheless, the new style did not translate to commercial success. "That's when Taiwanese movies were becoming too philosophical to be understood," Huang says.

Despite such criticisms, serious artistic works by masters like Hou have helped Taiwan's filmmakers to shine abroad, with international support not only bringing acclaim, but also helping some directors to secure foreign capital. For example, Hou has received investments from France and Japan. Tsai Ming-liang rose in the world of cinema after his highly experimental work Vive L'Amour shared the top prize for best movie at the 1994 Venice Film Festival and nowadays he obtains much of his financial support from French investors.

On the whole, though, Taiwan's film industry saw a general decline over the same period its films were winning critical acclaim internationally. According to the Government Information Office's (GIO) Department of Motion Pictures Affairs, for nine out of the 11 years from 1996 to 2006 the yearly revenue from Taiwanese movies accounted for less than 2 percent of total ticket sales in Taiwan. Throughout that time the best-selling Chinese-language movies were often from Hong Kong and mainland China. The lion's share of total box office income, more than 90 percent, was for foreign-language movies, mostly English-language films from Hollywood. The situation for local films reached its nadir in 2003 when just 18 Taiwanese feature films were produced, with their total revenue accounting for a mere 0.3 percent of all ticket sales.

Box office earnings for Taiwanese movies jumped to 7.4 percent of the total or NT$136 million (US$4.25 million) in 2007, mostly thanks to Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, the winner of the Golden Lion at the 2007 Venice Film Festival and the fourth most popular movie in Taiwan that year. Lust, Caution, an espionage story set in Hong Kong and Shanghai during World War II, is virtually an international production, however. The major reason for its qualifying as a Taiwanese movie is because director Ang Lee is from Taiwan. For many, the earnings of 2007's Secret and Island Etude are more encouraging because the two films better represent the local industry given that they include mostly Taiwanese cast, crew and production team members. The movies took in NT$26 million and $8.9 million (US$812,000 and $278,000) respectively on ticket sales in Taipei alone.

Audience Connection

Perhaps more importantly, the current crop of Taiwanese movies explore local society and tell stories in a way that allows them to connect with local audiences. "Here is the bounce after a long downturn in locally made cinema in which directors have ignored local audiences. Now many emerging directors want to make commercial movies and Wei Te-sheng is just the brightest star in this trend," Michael Mai says. The film critic says he is by no means criticizing art-house movies, but he laments the number of filmmakers that only try to imitate those award-winning directors. "We need national treasures such as Hou and Tsai, but we shouldn't have only them," he says.

The embrace of realistic settings and characters continued throughout 2008. Along with Cape No 7, Peggy Chiao was pleased to see films such as Winds of September, Orz Boyz and Parking. "In these movies you see weirdoes or ordinary people with strong personalities. They're all shaped by the unique social environment of Taiwan," she says.

"Most of the directors emerging on the scene want to shoot films with interesting, easy-to-understand stories," says Lee Lieh, the producer of Orz Boyz, a work featuring two mischievous boys from broken homes. Until the feature film, Lee had produced only TV dramas, but decided to take a chance on the movie after reading its script. By the end of October, Orz Boyz had already taken in NT$16.5 million (US$516,000) just in Taipei.

So, is Taiwan seeing a cinematic renaissance, as many are hoping? Producer Jimmy Huang responds with a definite no, saying that the incredible box-office success of Cape No.7 is a fluke that will be impossible to repeat in the near future. In fact, local audiences initially ignored Winds of September when it was first released in June 2008. The film, about a group of senior high students in the 1990s, was re-released in September following the success of Cape No.7, eventually collecting NT$4.58 million (US$143,000) at the box office in Taipei. The current craze for Taiwanese movies is also credited with bumping the box office returns for Orz Boyz.

 

Minister of the Government Information Office Vanessa Yea-ping Shih, fourth from left in back row, poses with the crew of Cape No.7. The GIO played a role in the movie's production by providing financial aid. (Central News Agency)

By the end of October, only about 15 locally made movies had been released for 2008, and just three of them--Cape No.7, Orz Boyz and Kung Fu Dunk, a movie about a mainland Chinese basketball player in Shanghai--had surpassed the box office mark of NT$5 million (US$156,000) on sales in Taipei. On the positive side, Taiwanese movies accounted for more than 8 percent of total ticket sales during the first 10 months of 2008, but obviously much of the credit belongs to just one film, Cape No.7.

"The environment hasn't changed a lot for those who want to make movies," says En Chen, director of Island Etude, a story about a young man bicycling around Taiwan. "Taiwan actually doesn't have a movie industry, as is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of people working in the local film industry can't make a living by making movies alone," he says. The cinematographer for A City of Sadness, Chen spent one and a half years making his own first feature film, which he hopes captures the beauty of Taiwan's coastal scenery. Island Etude did not perform badly at the box office compared to most local movies, but Chen still feels the need to depend on jobs such as shooting TV commercials to ensure his livelihood.

On the other hand, the success of Cape No.7 has rekindled some hopes for a renaissance of Taiwanese cinema. "The most important message of Cape No.7 is that Taiwanese can make good and lucrative movies, which certainly will attract investment for local films," Peggy Chiao says. "Taiwan is capable of creating pop culture icons such as pop singers and idol drama actors. There's no reason we can't develop local cinema into a pop culture brand," she says. In fact, by September 2008, Hong Kong-based Filmko Holdings had set up an office in Taipei with the mission of sponsoring local movie productions. The company plans to make six to eight films over the next three years, starting with Love to the End, a four-part movie by four new local directors, including online writer Giddens, the pen name of Ke Jing-teng, also known as "Nine Knives" in Chinese, and song lyricist Vincent Fang. With a budget of NT$50 million (US$1.6 million), the movie was already in post-production by November 2008.

Meanwhile, in December 2006 the GIO announced a policy of assisting filmmakers in cinema and TV in acquiring capital from financial institutions, in addition to its grant program, which started in 1990. The assistance not only offers government-guaranteed bank loans to filmmakers for up to NT$100 million (US$3.1 million), but also subsidizes works by paying 3 percent of the loan's interest. Wei Te-sheng became the first filmmaker to benefit from this new policy, which helped him to borrow NT$15 million (US$469,000) from two local banks in 2007 to fund the production of Cape No.7. The loan was in addition to a government grant of NT$5 million (US$156,000) for Wei's film.

In October 2008, the GIO announced an additional policy aimed at encouraging the production of commercial movies by offering extra funding to directors if a movie earns more than NT$50 million (US$1.56 million) in box office sales. A successful director can receive a subsidy equal to 20 percent of the total box office income to be used for the production of his or her next movie. In the case of Cape No.7, this would mean at least an extra NT$90 million (US$2.8 million) in government funds for Wei's next work, Seediq Bale.

Most importantly, the recent successes have shown new horizons for Taiwan's movies to both local audiences and filmmakers. "I'll need to be more careful when making films in future because now Taiwan's audiences have higher expectations for local movies," says Island Etude director En Chen. Chen is now writing a script for his second movie. "You know, they are just starting to have confidence in Taiwan's movies," he says.

A native of Tainan County in southern Taiwan, Wei Te-sheng, now 40, was first attracted to the world of cinema when he served in the military and met a fellow soldier who talked about movies all day long. The electrical engineering major entered the world of images and sounds in the early 1990s, starting as a TV program assistant and then a film continuity clerk, who assists both the editor and the director. Later he worked for the studio of Edward Yang, one of the major figures in Taiwan's New Wave Cinema movement in the 1980s, and became the assistant director on Yang's Mahjong (1996), winner of the special jury award at the Berlin Film Festival. Wei says Yang, who passed away in 2007, had an extremely serious attitude about work, and remains the most influential director in his career.

However, the local industry has been an unfavorable environment for movie production throughout much of Wei's career. He has only been able to work in cinema intermittently and even shared his frustrations as an unemployed filmmaker in a book published in 2002. On the other hand, many in the local cinema scene have long recognized his talent. To date, he has won the GIO's Excellent Screenplay Award three times.

The first award-winning script in 1994 later became the movie About July, a 72-minute film from 1999 that starts with the death of a father in July on the lunar calendar, the Chinese Ghost Month. It made its debut at a festival for short films in Taipei, but it was not released in theaters. However, About July impressed many, including director Chen Kuo-fu, who accordingly asked Wei to be associate producer on Chen's film Double Vision, a thriller that turned out to be the most successful locally produced film of 2002.

Wei's other two winning scripts are both about Taiwan's aborigines. One story about an aboriginal hero fighting the Japanese during the colonial era, Seediq Bale, won recognition as a screenplay in 2000 and was developed for a feature film by Wei four years later. Short of funds, the director collected more than NT$2 million (US$62,500) to make a five-minute high quality trailer for the film, in the hope of impressing potential investors. Although the trailer, now available on YouTube, won wide acclaim, Wei has yet to piece together the estimated NT$300 million (US$9.4 million) to complete the epic. This has not deterred him at all, however. "If one chance doesn't work out, that means a bigger one is waiting for me," the director says of his attitude in dealing with obstacles.

In 2004, the story of Cape No.7 started to take shape in his mind and two years later he succeeded in applying for a subsidy of NT$5 million (US$156,000) from the GIO. However, the financial assistance from the government combined with other support from two movie production-related businesses was far from sufficient for a director with great ambition, as a locally made feature film usually costs around NT$10 million (US$312,000) to make. Instead of compromising his plans, Wei decided to borrow an extra NT$30 million (US$937,000) to fulfill his vision for Cape No.7, which in the end came in at around NT$50 million (US$1.6 million).

"All the people around him discouraged him from spending so much on the movie. It's too risky. But he insisted, and his insistence is the biggest reason for the movie's success," says Jimmy Huang, the film's executive producer.

"I've been waiting for the chance to achieve success since I entered the world of cinema," Wei says. "I once thought about giving up, but I was just unwilling to resign myself to that fate. I'm like the male lead in the movie in that sense," he says, referring to A-ga, the protagonist of Cape No.7, who eventually finds hope and love in his hometown.

Now that the director's determination has finally paid off, it is likely that the production of his next film, Seediq Bale, will face few problems in eventually attracting enough capital. In fact, filming on the project resumed in October 2008. "I have planned for this film for four years, and the storyboard has already been completed," he says. It seems that Wei is well on his way to touching the hearts of audiences again and challenging the box-office records for Taiwanese films he himself has set.

--Oscar Chung

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw