2020 CTS Film Week: "Encounter at the Station" (難忘的車站) Film Screening, Introduced by Professor Chris Berry (KCL)

Professor Chris Berry (KCL)

2K Restoration

1965｜112 min｜B&W｜Narrative Feature｜Taiwanese∣

Synopsis

Tshui-Giok’s step-father sells her to a club to pay off his debt. But when her boyfriend, Kok-Liong, learns about it he helps get her out and plans to marry her. However, Kok-Liong’s mother disapproves of the marriage and arranges for him to marry a wealthy girl, Hun-Kiau. Years later, when Kok-Liong and Tshui-Giok meet again, all their feelings return. Though Tshui-Giok ultimately decides to break up with Kok-Liong for the sake of Hun-Kiau, her leaving drives Kok-Liong mad and Hun-Kiau has no choice but to set Kok-Liong free, so he and Tshui-Giok can be together.

The film is adapted from CHIN Hsing-Chi’s popular novel Leng Nuan Jen Chien, though its wartime atmosphere and female protagonist’s personal struggles are removed to focus on the love triangle in order to make it a family melodrama. Told from an omniscient point of view, the film not only carries a well-executed narrative, a gripping storyline and strong emotions, it also reshapes characters to adapt to its form of visual storytelling, placing it at the pinnacle of the Taiwanese-language family melodrama genre.

Director Biography: HSIN Chi

Born in 1924, HSIN found his love for movies, literature and plays at a young age. After studying theater at Nihon University in Japan, he returned to Taiwan and became active in the theater movement. Though he temporarily left Taiwan following the February 28 Incident, he again returned as Taiwanese-language films were on the rise, during which he began to explore filmmaking. He organized actors’ workshops and became a screenwriter and director interested in experimenting with different subjects, styles and techniques. His most notable Taiwanese-language films include the baseball film Kiss Me (1963), Alias Lover (1965) based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a disaster film, The Night of Jiayi Earthquake (1964), and Back Street Life (1965), a satirical comedy about low lifes. Eight of HSIN’s Taiwanese-language films exist today and are currently preserved in Taiwan Film Institute.

Speaker Biography

Prof Chris Berry is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London, and his academic research is grounded in work on Chinese-language cinemas. Primary publications include: (with Mary Farquhar) Cinema and the National: China on Screen (Columbia University Press and Hong Kong University Press, 2006); Postsocialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: the Cultural Revolution after the Cultural Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2004); (co-edited with Luke Robinson) Chinese Film Festivals: Sites of Translation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); (co-edited with Koichi Iwabuchi and Eva Tsai) Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture (Routledge, 2016); (edited with Nicola Liscutin and Jonathan D. Mackintosh), Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009); and (co-edited with Feii Lu) Island on the Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005).

* All SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies are free and open to all to attend. We suggest you arrive a few minutes early at the venue to secure your seat.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: ml156@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: Taiwan Film Institute & Taiwan Cinema Toolkit