Movies can reflect a nation’s culture and showcase its soft power. For the past few years, Taiwanese movies have been making a splash at international film festivals and have helped introduce Taiwan’s many movie talents to the world.
At the end of July, the Venice Film Festival, one of the top three events of its kind in the world, announced that Taiwanese film director Wei Te-sheng’s “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale” had been nominated for its Golden Lion Award. In fact, Wei is not the only Taiwanese filmmaker to have received such an honor. In 1989, Hou Hsiao-hsien captured the Golden Lion with “A City of Sadness,” while Ang Lee pocketed the same award with “Lust, Caution” in 2007.
According to former Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Chiu Kun-liang, movies were first introduced to Taiwan in 1907 by Japanese filmmaker Takamatsu Toyojiro. However, these films were in Japanese and functioned as propaganda tools for Taiwan’s colonial rulers at the time.
It was not until the establishment of Central Pictures Corp. in 1954 that Taiwan began producing movies in Mandarin. But in the 1950s the themes of most films focused on advocating civic virtue and morality in a rural setting. In the 1960s, Taiwanese-language films based on traditional folk operas or modern melodramas were also popular among audiences.
In the 1970s, Taiwan cinema thrived as its popularity spread to Southeast Asia. At one time, the local film industry even became the third largest in the world. The influx of Hollywood pictures during the 1990s, however, led to a decline in the nation’s movie industry.
Just when almost everyone seemed to lose faith in the sector, Wei Te-sheng’s “Cape No. 7” in 2008 rekindled people’s hope for the industry. The movie generated box-office returns of NT$530 million (US$18.3 million), a record in the history of Taiwanese cinema. Wei’s talent in directing quality films even brought investment of NT$350 million from CPC, the largest player in the movie sector, for his latest film “Seediq Bale.”
Taiwanese director Wei Te-sheng brings hope to the nation’s declining film industry with “Cape No. 7” in 2008. (Photos courtesy of ARS Film Production)
Wei is just one among the many talented Taiwanese directors devoting themselves to making Taiwanese movies seen in the world—at the Busan International Film Festival, for example, which was launched in 1996 and has since emerged as one of the largest events of its kind in Asia, with many actors, directors and movie producers vying to attend.
Since its inception, BIFF has screened over 3,500 movies from countries such as India, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. Taiwan, too, has had a large presence.
Out of the 315 films shown at the event in 2008, nine were from Taiwan; out of the 355 films screened in 2009, 10 were from Taiwan; and in 2010, 12 among the 306 films shown were from Taiwan. The steady increase of Taiwanese movies screened at the festival indicates the event organizer’s recognition of Taiwanese films and directors.
“The technical quality, director’s new style and new ideas are important criteria for deciding which films to screen,” said BIFF Executive Programmer Kim Ji-seok, who was one of the festival’s founders.
“Basically BIFF focuses on art-house films. Sometimes I choose commercial films, too, because through our film festival I try to introduce some trendy Taiwanese films to an audience of foreign buyers.”
According to Kim, there have been three waves of Taiwanese films. The first lasted between 1982 and 1990, and was represented by the works of Hou and Edward Yang; the second, between 1990 and 2010, was represented by directors Chang Tso-chi, Lin Cheng-sheng and Tsai Ming-liang; the still ongoing third wave involves younger directors such as Arvin Chen and Wei.
“During the first stage, directors combined personal stories with the history of modern Taiwan, whereas in the second stage, they started to talk more about Taiwan society, like the dark side of Taipei,” Kim explained. In the third stage, new themes have emerged, such as a concern for aborigines, he said, citing “Seediq Bale” as an example.
It is an epic film centering on the 1930 Wushe Incident in Nantou County, during which the indigenous Seediq tribe rose up against Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945). It is slated for release in Taiwan this September.
“Taiwanese filmmakers have established their own creative style, which is totally different from that of any other Asian country, and even around the world,” Kim said. “If you look at the works of masters such as Hou and Tsai, you will see they have their own way of shooting—the films are drawn out, and there’s extensive use of stationary cameras, as for example in Tsai’s ‘Face.’
“But recently, the styles of emerging young directors have become more lighthearted,” he added, citing Chen’s “Au Revoir Taipei” as an example, a comedy in which characters sometimes break into song.
In addition, the themes of movies by Taiwanese filmmakers are unique, according to Kim. “They talk about personal experiences, the personal history of the protagonists,” he pointed out.
“South Korea also has social drama that talks about the dark side of the society, but it is not combined with personal experience. This kind of Korean film tells the story from a third-person perspective, which is different from Taiwanese films.”
According to Kim, there are many excellent film directors in Taiwan. Unfortunately, the film industry has been very weak, with the market share of domestic films only 3 percent in some years, he said.
“It’s very small, especially compared to the Korean market,” Kim pointed out, adding that the market share of Korean films is about 50 percent every year, while Hollywood movies account for around 40 percent and other foreign movies take up the rest.
Nonetheless, Wei’s “Cape No. 7” was very successful at the box office and has brought hope for the movie industry in Taiwan, Kim stressed.
“I think this year is very, very important for Taiwanese films, because of Wei’s ‘Seediq Bale,’” he said. “I know a huge amount of production money has been invested in the movie, so everybody is concerned about the result. Whether Taiwan’s film industry goes up or down depends on this film.”
Having been involved in the movie sector for more than 15 years, Kim has a point. Wei’s latest film has attracted lots of attention well before its release. If it succeeds, it will pave the way for emerging talents in the sector.
Busan International Film Festival: an emerging stage for movie talents
Established in 1996, the Busan International Film Festival has grown to be a major international destination for actors, directors and movie producers—not to mention film lovers.
According to executive programmer Kim Ji-seok, BIFF was established because at the time South Korea had no international festivals.
The experience of being a film critic at other film festivals—for instance, at the 1992 Pesaro International Film Festival in Italy—shocked Kim. This led him to develop ideas on how to initiate similar festivals in his native land, especially in Busan, South Korea’s second largest city after Seoul.
“Back then, all the resources went to Seoul, and all the filmmakers only thought about Seoul, too. Busan got nothing," Kim said.
“And at the time, Korean audiences didn’t have any chance to see foreign films, other than those from Hollywood and Hong Kong," he said. “The only way to see foreign films was by buying VHS tapes from abroad. In setting up the festival, our goal was thus to support Korean and Asian films.”
The first edition of the festival proved to be very successful. A total of 169 films from 31 countries around the world were screened, but most importantly, 184,071 movie lovers showed up for the nine-day event.
The entire BIFF staff, as well as officials at the Busan City government, was surprised and even shocked, since we had predicted an attendance of around 50,000 visitors, Kim recalled.
The executive programmer attributed the success to efforts by Kim Dong-ho, the former BIFF director who retired at the end of 2010.
“He had a very strong network with the central government and the industry,” Kim said. “He asked the central and city governments for BIFF to be independently run and they agreed. The city government also supported us with a lot of money.”
Though successful, BIFF had some growing pains in its first few years, especially over the issue of censorship. According to South Korea’s Enforcement Ordinance of the Film Promotion Act, all films shown in the nation were then subject to review by the Korean Public Performance Ethics Committee.
This meant that the 169 films slated to be shown at the festival would have to be reviewed—an impossible task, for there was not enough time for the committee to inspect so many films, and the BIFF organizers did not have the funding to pay for the review fees.
Kim Dong-ho, who had been a member of the ethics committee, asked his former colleagues for a special dispensation. The BIFF was a cultural event that should not be subject to the same kinds of rules as other commercial films, he argued.
To its credit, the committee found Kim Dong-ho’s line of reasoning acceptable and agreed to give a special pass to BIFF. This allowed the festival to take place as planned.
Over the past 16 years, according to Kim Ji-seok, BIFF has branched out in several ways and it now includes four major sideshows.
These are the Asian Film Market, a marketplace for industry events at BIFF; the Asian Project Market, a platform for enhancing movie coproduction between filmmakers and financiers; the Asian Cinema Fund, a program providing stable production environment for independent producers; and the Asian Film Academy, an educational program fostering young Asian talents.
Kim Ji-seok’s aspiration for BIFF is not for it to follow the footsteps of the Berlin International Film Festival, the Cannes International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival.
“Their monopoly cannot be broken,” Kim said. “So, we want to differentiate ourselves and establish our own identity.” (HZW)
Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw