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Helmed by Hsu Fu-hsiang in his first feature-length campus romance and produced by writer-director Lai Yu-tong, “Lovesick” draws from deeply personal roots. Lai, inspired by his own rebellious school days, envisioned a story that captures the collision of mischief and vulnerability, of lies told to avoid the world and truths that eventually demand to be heard. The effort to channel the appeal of Taiwanese blockbusters such as “You Are the Apple of My Eye” and “Our Times” is evident throughout; the question is whether the filmmakers managed to rise to the occasion.

Lovesick is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Ye Zijie (aka Jay) is a teenager whose family perished in a train accident some years prior. Since then, he has lived under the care of his aunt, a young surgeon working at a local hospital. Despite this tragic background, Jay plays the class clown, frequently paired with his best friend Td,...

A traditional family of villagers has to cope with the reality of morden life, when the passing of the patriarchic figure of the family, grandfather Hayung, the entrance of the eldest son Passang to the local ellections as a cantidate, and the return of the grandaugter from New Zealand along with her foreing boyfriend make living a litle bit more challenging than it already was. Is it possible for a close-knit, family rooted to a taiwanese village for decades to preserve their old ethics when conteporary life tells them otherwise?

Gaga screened at Hawai’i International Film Festival

Among the pleasant, unexcepted things this movie acquires from its talented director Laha Mebow and the cinematographers Garvin Chan and Aymerick Benjamin Pilarski is the unbelievably detailed depiction of the natural scenery of rural Taiwan, to the point that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I almost felt the misty,...

Produced by Dreamland Image, the company of former actress May Su, “Dear Loneliness” is a triptych of stories about women and loneliness, whose creators have drawn inspiration from a two-part documentary on 80 of Taiwan’s independent bookstores.

“Dear Loneliness” is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Hsiao Yu focuses on a 12-years-old schoolgirl, who spends most of her free time in a bookstore, since she has no friends. As the majority of the girls in her school, she is in love with a young and very handsome teacher, David, and after reading a book that borders on the erotic, decides to seduce him, at least in the way seduction works in her mind.

Through a story that is harshly realistic, Lien Chien-hung manages to make a number of social comments, with the central one revolving around the issue of lack of parenting for young people, which seems to be...

Even though many people have fought for the rights we now enjoy in the past, we, at times, take them for granted. Apart from issues such as free speech, there are also factors such as having a roof over your head, the ability to work and live wherever you want to and have your rights protected by authorities as well as state institutions. Therefore it is certainly sobering to find directors emphasizing how central and necessary those rights and aspects of our lives are, by focusing on those areas within our world that still live without them. In his short feature “Tea Land”, Taiwanese director Tseng Ying-Ting tells a story of people whose status as illegal workers makes them suspend these rights in order to support themselves and their families. The film tells a story about desperation, envy and also the longing to break out of a cycle that has...