Rating: 4.5/5
Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 2/52 | Hong Kong Film Awards Top 100 Films
My hair had hardly covered my forehead. I was picking flowers, playing by my door, When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse, Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums. We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan, Both of us young and happy-hearted. — Li Bai, </i>A Poem of Changgan</i>
Lung and Chen stand in Chen’s new apartment. Chen wears a baby blue suit and thick sunglasses. She lists appliances that could go on shelves in the bedroom. Lung is in khakis and a polo, smoking a cigarette, and pretending to swing a baseball bat. He worries about the cost of fixing up the place, but Chen’s boss, Ms. Mei, has promised Chen a promotion and raise. When Chen moves in, Lung will be in LA.
Cut to some time later, when Lung is coming back from America. The apartment is decorated and full of appliances. Chen’s boss, Ms. Mei, quit due to a construction error that led to another company acquiring them. Chen worries that her position may be in jeopardy. Her colleague, Mr. Ke, is also planning on leaving. The two overlook the city. Mr. Ke laments that he cannot distinguish the buildings he designed from all the others, considering it a sign that his work is no longer meaningful.
Lung visits Mr. Lai, his old Little League coach. Mr. Lai asks Lung about LA. Lung says it isn’t that different from Taipei. He also spent a week in Tokyo. That night, he goes with Chen to visit her family. Chen announces her move-out. Her father notes how times have changed, a daughter moving out before marriage. Lung leaves to drop off tapes at Mr. Lai’s place. When Chen asks about Tokyo, Lung tells her he was only there for a layover.
The film follows Chen and Lung as they look forward and figure out what that means for them.
The Chinese title of the film is 青梅竹馬, or “green plum, bamboo horse,” is a Chinese idiom referring to childhood sweethearts. The title suggests a melodramatic love story about lovers meant to be. The film is anything but. With sparse cityscapes and little non-diegetic music, this film is about the world as it is.
The English title, Taipei Story, performs a subtle political move. Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-Hsien (who stars in this as Lung) remind audiences that Taiwan is outside and independent of mainland China. Not only that, but Taipei was a city embracing the globalization of the 1980s and the Western values that came with it.
Much of the film explores the contrasts between traditional life in Taipei and the life that globalization has brought to the city. It’s less about one vs. the other and more of an interrogation of what it means to live in a city going through an identity crisis. As we’ve seen, industrialization increases the cost of living, and few have the means to live as they did.
That identity crisis spreads to our two characters. Chen has embraced Western values and longs to emigrate to the States with Lung. But Lung is unsure about the emigration and falls into nostalgia for his past and, by extension, the city’s. Lung grows distant, leaving Chen at a loss for how to move forward.
One of my favorite little moments is when Chen’s sister, Ling, comes by to ask for money. To soften up Chen, she pulls out a wind-up Pepsi-Cola can that walks when let go.
Also, the night photography is so gorgeous. Every Tumblr photographer aspired to this aesthetic in the 2000s.
After all this time, you don't know what I need? I don't need anything.
What a sharp, minimal movie — I loved being lost in its melancholy for a few hours.