A Strategy for Film Promotion

Taiwan films have had excellent achievements at international film festivals. Says Hsiung Hsiung-ping, a film critic who attended both the Venice and Berlin festivals, "Besides the films being able to speak for themselves, it is also indispensible to have skilled and complete pre-event preparations."

From "Sadness" to "Banquet":

Taiwan films have been actively participating in international film festivals ever since City of Sadness. How to give these films exposure, and allow for an appropriate explication of the different and relatively difficult culture that underlies them--for example, City of Sadness describes the February 28 incident from Taiwan's history--depends on comprehensive public relations.

Hsu Li-kung, assistant general manager at the Central Motion Picture Corporation, points out that, "Foreigners don't necessarily understand the February 28 incident that well, but they have great respect for directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien whose work is rich in humanitarian feeling and as powerful as an epic poem."

City of Sadness revolves around the story of the Lin family, from the mining town of Chiufen in Taipei County. Through the fates of the members of the Lin family, it describes the political, economic, and social conditions in Taiwan when the government of the Republic of China first arrived, with a special focus on the lead-in to and effects of the February 28 incident in 1947. Because the incident had long been politically taboo, "City of Sadness" was a much-discussed project from the beginning of filming right up until it brought home its award.

Wolf Chen, Theatrical Marketing manager at ERA International film distributors, states that that was just when Taiwan was emerging from martial law and when native Taiwanese culture was being intensely discussed. Just then the Tienanmen incident occurred, so the whole film fit in perfectly with the times, creating a tremendous impact. "We used the incident to carry out promotion of the film," says Wolf Chen. Thus, although many people found it difficult to understand the film, its high level exposure in the media helped out at the box office.

Hou Hsiao-hsien had gradually gained in name recognition, beginning with his nostalgic films about "the experience of growing up" from the New Wave film period, as he took his work alone to participate in film festivals. By the time of City of Sadness, "Hou Hsiao-hsien had already achieved a considerable status in Europe, and was included in the 'ranks of the masters.' He had intensive interviews starting at 9:00 in the morning, often with the next guy waiting outside the door before the first one had even finished. And if it was a film world insider, the talk would jump right up to the technical level as soon as the two started chatting," relates Hsiung Hsiung-ping.

Before being shot as a film, Stan Lai's Secret Love for a Peach Blossom Spring was a play. It is rather experimental in form. （photo courtesy of The Performance Workshop）

Making known the presence of an entire culture:

Also, the packaging and promotion that the Central Motion Picture Studios did for The Wedding Banquet was very skillful.

First, while the film was being shot and produced, Central Motion Picture studios deliberately downplayed themes of homosexuality, so that this sensitive topic would not have a negative impact on the film.

When they got to Berlin, every day they pasted up catchy and clever "Wedding Banquet" posters which were hard to miss.

Besides bringing in specialists to design the posters, they hired well-connected local public relations people to be responsible for media relations and promotion, enabling European and American newspapers and TV to do reports one after the other. After being interviewed by the media from more than 40 nations, Ang Lee had already become a focus of the festival even before winning a single award.

In addition, when the representative group arrived in Berlin and found that the film festival's daily publication was quite weighty, with the help of the public relations firm they made broad and friendly connections. Also, taking advantage of the timing, before the first showing of the film they invited important critics to a special preview showing. As a result, the day that The Wedding Banquet was to premiere, a strong review by a famous film person appeared, in which it was predicted that The Wedding Banquet would be a dark horse candidate. This preliminary promotion was of no small value to the film's finally winning the award.

Of course, in the three films participating in this festival, an even more important selling point is "new directors, new viewpoints."

When City of Sadness first made its presence felt, Hou Hsiao-hsien's personal creative style made him a closely-watched figure. Today, the image of the entire culture is being put on display, and only with cumulative effort and planning can there be rewards.