Pursuing Their Dreams in Taiwan

“You get more visibility if you make films in Taiwan.” Ho Wi Ding, who has won awards at the Cannes Festival, the Comedy Cluj International Film Festival in Romania, and the Golden Horse Film Festival, moved to Taiwan after graduating from New York University.

Ho’s latest work, Terrorizers, demonstrates his characteristically imaginative style. Though apparently a fantasy-­style commercial teen film, it examines problems faced by young people of Generation Z, such as exces­sive immersion in the virtual world and video game addiction. The film not only includes electrifying sex scenes but also explores serious and controversial topics, including random killing, voyeurism, lesbianism, and sexuality.

Lee Yong Chao

An open-minded place

“The topics we’ve covered this time are taboo in many places. The film couldn’t have been made in Malaysia, and in Singapore or Hong Kong you have to be over 21 to watch it.” While Ho Wi Ding’s new film, which touches on lesbianism and sexual desire, cannot be released in Malaysia, in Taiwan it is classified as “Protected”: children aged six to 11 can view it if accompan­ied by an adult. This not only tells us about the differences between the two countries, but also shows that film content assessors in Taiwan are respect­ful of creative art.

Ho began to write film reviews in high school. He used to watch over 50 films a year, both good and bad ones, and his classmates saw him as a film buff. Ho acquired a basic knowledge of the film industry from the Taiwanese filmmaker Peggy Chiao’s series of books on films, which introduced him to film movements like the French New Wave, and directors like Akira Kurosawa and Federico Fellini. He also learned about film schools. One day, while reading Sinorama magazine (now Taiwan Panorama), he was struck by a description of the liberal atmosphere at New York University, and he decided to go and study in the West.

Recalling his time at NYU, Ho tells us that there were regular screenings of Taiwanese films on campus: “At that time, directors Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-­liang, Edward Yang, and Wong Kar-wai were all very popular. I watched Tsai’s Vive l’Amour at the Museum of Modern Art and watched every film of Director Hou’s that was screened at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—those were 35-millimeter duplicates. So I had a deep reverence for Taiwanese films!”

Ho Wi Ding (courtesy of Terrorizers)

Sourcing inspiration

Filmmakers in Taiwan enjoy plenty of creative freedom. Ho often looks for inspiration in the streets of Taipei. “Zhongshan District, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Wanhua, Guangzhou Street, Heping West Road—old urban areas don’t mean poverty, and they aren’t neces­sarily old-fashioned. In my films I want to construct a world in West Taipei that belongs to young people. Far from seeming out of place, that’s something very Taiwanese. And I like it.”

As for filming locations, Ho finds that “Taiwanese cities are very filmic, very cool and chaotic. Every lane, ­every corner has some surprise for you. In a quiet lane, you may come across beautiful low walls and plants, and round the corner there may be an enormous mansion waiting for you. This is what’s fun about Taiwan.”

Ho has spent more than 20 years here. He often gains new ideas from Taiwan’s entertainment-styled TV news, and the place’s vitality and spirit of toleration have also won his heart. “One of our films was about police corrup­tion. Our filming location was on the second floor of a police station. Every day, we entered the station, said hello to the officers, and then proceeded upstairs to work, making a hell of a lot of noise there. The officers never came upstairs to see what was going on.”

Ho jokes that he likes to watch films that aren’t too intellectually challenging, but his own works are always thought-provoking: “If we put more content and more fresh perspectives into a film, the audience will have something to contemplate after watching it. Only then can we justify the vast amount of time, energy, and money needed to produce a film.”

Ho Wi Ding’s work examines the plight and sexuality of young people. (courtesy of Terrorizers)

A young director

Taiwan’s liberal creative environment has also fostered younger filmmakers like Lee Yong Chao, who was born in a village in northern Myanmar. Lee’s work investig­ates sensitive issues related to lower-class people in Myanmar. Blood Amber is about villagers in the north of the country who risk their lives to mine the precious Burmese amber. To film it, Lee went into a forest controlled by the Kachin Independence Army, where he documented the harsh realities that beset the local amber mining community. The Bad Man, which took two years to produce, tells the story of a violent drug addict, a young Kachin man. The two docu­mentaries are the only Taiwanese films ever selected for the Semaine de la critique at the Locarno Film Festival.

It was while he was studying for a degree in digital media design at National Yunlin University of Science and Technology that Lee started to take film seriously. He began by entering short-film competitions, gradually earning an international reputation.

courtesy of Terrorizers

Educated in Taiwan

“Back then, people of Chinese heritage in Myanmar all saw their future in Taiwan.” It wasn’t until Lee Yong Chao was 20 that he got a chance to use a computer and learn to type. “My classmates were already adept at creating animated videos and doing graphic design and webpage design, but I couldn’t even do a self-­portrait. I only knew how to draw matchstick men.”

Thanks to his university education, Lee was able to choose a filmmaking career in Taiwan. A descendant of the “Lost Army” (soldiers left behind in the borderlands between Myanmar and China’s Yunnan Province after the ROC government withdrew to Taiwan in 1949), Lee counts himself lucky: “Many Burmese people in Taiwan can only expect to earn enough to feed themselves, and their families back in Myanmar, but here I am, pursuing my filmmaking dream.” While filming The Bad Man, Lee had to conquer his fear and interact with his homicidal subject at close quarters. “While working on this docu­ment­ary, I had to overcome my reluctance every time I flew to Myanmar.” At first Lee wanted to film other young people in the drug rehabilitation center, but he changed his mind after meeting this Kachin youth. His project was strongly supported by Taiwan’s Public Television Service Foundation.

Lee records the lives of people on the lowest rungs of society in Myanmar by means of chiaroscuro, gazing intensely on his subjects. He hopes to convey his view that human nature is inherently good. While his films would be censored in Myanmar, in Taiwan Lee is able to be true to himself and present a faithful image of contemporary Myanmar. In doing so, he is helping the world understand his native country.

Through his camera, Ho Wi Ding (left) records his perceptions of Taiwan, as well as snippets of daily life here. (courtesy of Terrorizers)

Open-minded Taiwan

“Taiwan’s creative environment has something to recommend itself: being free and democratic, it provides a liberal space for creative activities, including film­making,” says Wang Chun-chi, CEO of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. It is this environment that has enabled Malaysian directors like Tsai Ming-­liang and Ho Wi Ding, and Burmese directors like Midi Z and Lee Yong Chao, to flourish here.

In 2018 Taiwan’s film industry was worth NT$22.5 billion to the economy; 323 Taiwanese films were promoted at international trade shows that year, including a number of international coproductions. This bears witness to the vibrancy of Taiwan’s film industry. The government’s open-minded policy toward film and TV content and schemes for financing production and support­ing international collaboration also play a ­major role.

Terrorizers was nominated for five awards at the Golden Horse Film Festival. An atypical romance, it explores the intricacies of human nature and touches upon taboo topics.

Diversity

From Ho Wi Ding’s lesbian images to Lee Yong Chao’s stories of people on the bottom rung of the ­social ladder, we can observe Taiwan’s open attitude towards film subjects.

There is less concentration of capital in Taiwan’s film industry than in some other countries, and Wang Chun-chi regards this as a blessing. “In South Korea, apart from large-scale commercial films, there’s almost no room for independent films. But in Taiwan all sorts of films are being produced. This makes independent directors in South Korea very envious.” 

From the special political and economic circumstances that gave rise to the Taiwanese New Wave Cinema of the 1980s, to our current influx of overseas talent, Taiwan has been attracting international filmmakers thanks to its excellent creative environment, talented professionals, and cutting-edge technology.

Lee Yong Chao’s Blood Amber was featured in the Wide Angle documentary showcase at the 2017 Busan International Film Festival. (courtesy of Lee Yong Chao)

Lee Yong Chao spent two years filming The Bad Man, shedding light on the inner world of a Kachin youth. In addition to revealing the emotional paralysis of Burmese people who are crushed by the brutality of the times they have lived through, the film conveys Lee’s belief that human nature is inherently good. This picture is a still from The Bad Man. (courtesy of Lee Yong Chao)

A still from The Bad Man. (courtesy of Lee Yong Chao)

A still from The Bad Man. (courtesy of Lee Yong Chao)

A still from The Bad Man. (courtesy of Lee Yong Chao)

Born in a village in northern Myanmar, Lee Yong Chao started to take film seriously while he was studying for an undergraduate degree in Taiwan. His Blood Amber was selected for the Semaine de la critique at the Locarno Film Festival, and his Rain in 2020 was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2021 Golden Horse Awards.