Mountain Makers: A Century's Bet — A TSMC Epic Without Morris Chang, From Hsinchu to Purdue

30-second overview: Documentary director Hsiao Chu-chen spent five years (2019–2024) interviewing more than 80 semiconductor pioneers and produced an epic about Taiwan's semiconductor industry — yet the film contains no formal on-camera interview with Morris Chang. The Chinese title is 造山者：世紀的賭注 (Mountain Makers: A Century's Bet); the English title is A Chip Odyssey (not the widely circulated "The Mountain Maker"). After opening in Taiwanese theaters in June 2025, it broke NT$32 million at the box office and entered the top five highest-grossing documentaries in Taiwan's film history. From fall 2025 through spring 2026, the film traveled to Stanford, UCLA, Columbia, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Michigan — all centers of America's semiconductor manufacturing revival under the CHIPS Act — becoming another diplomatic track for Taiwan's technology soft power.

An Afternoon at Purdue

April 16, 2026. West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue University. Dan Delaurentis, Executive Vice President for Research; Chad Pittman, CEO of the Purdue Research Foundation; Zhihong Chen, Chair of the Purdue Semiconductor Leadership Initiative; and Josh Richardson, Indiana's newly appointed Secretary of Commerce, all filed into the screening room¹.

Six days earlier, the same screening had been held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Morgridge Hall. Attendees included Maggie Brickerman, President of the Wisconsin Technology Council, and Wausau Mayor Doug Din¹. And going back to February 8, the Michigan screening had seated Michigan state senator Sue Shink, University of Michigan professor Becky Peterson, and IMEC director James Foresi¹.

These three universities were not randomly chosen. Purdue's Indiana had secured SK hynix's packaging plant investment; Wisconsin's tech corridor was welcoming Microsoft's AI data centers; and Michigan is at the core of America's semiconductor manufacturing belt. What the three screenings shared was their CHIPS Act context — states in the American Midwest working to rebuild semiconductor manufacturing since 2022.

And in front of them was a film made by a Taiwanese director, telling the story of how Taiwan built the world's most advanced manufacturing processes.

A TSMC Epic Without Morris Chang

A Chip Odyssey (造山者：世紀的賭注) was directed by Hsiao Chu-chen, professor at National Tsing Hua University's Center for General Education and College of Humanities and Social Sciences². She is the only Taiwanese director to win the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary in two consecutive years — for The Legend of Hongye in 1999 and Silver Hairpin in 2000³.

But the film has one structural absence: Morris Chang.

"Morris Chang did not give us a formal interview," Hsiao said. "He was writing the second volume of his memoir, and of course TSMC's restrictions on filming were a layer of protection in their own right." She ultimately could only capture Chang at a public awards ceremony, using multiple cameras to record his silhouette and acceptance remarks⁴.

📝 Curator's Note
An epic about TSMC with no on-camera interview with its founder — this structural absence itself says something. TSMC's exceptionalism lies not only in its processes but in how it projects outward: a culture of secrecy so deep that even revisiting its own history involves layer upon layer of protection.

What ended up on screen were profiles, re-shoots, and news footage edited in. Hsiao instead turned her lens to those who count as mountain-makers even though they're not at TSMC: Stan Shih-Tai as the film's chief consultant; MediaTek's Tsai Ming-Kai; Yang Ding-Yuan, general director of the RCA project team; Roaring Mandarin CEO Lu Chih-Yuan; TSMC former vice chairman Tseng Fan-Cheng; Lin Ben-Jian (the immersion lithography breakthrough); Chiang Shang-Yi; Simon Sze (inventor of non-volatile memory); UMC founding president Tu Chun-Yuan; and the first generation of unnamed female operators⁵.

Five Years, Eighty People

CNEX Studio Corporation is a familiar name in documentary circles. It is the Mandarin-language documentary NGO co-founded in 2007 by Chiang Hsien-pin, Chen Ling-Chen, and Chang Chao-wei simultaneously in Taipei, Beijing, and Hong Kong⁶. Chiang Hsien-pin is the co-founder of Sina.com, and after founding CNEX committed himself to supporting and internationally distributing Mandarin-language documentaries.

The production team did something distinctive: they brought semiconductor industry veterans directly into the production side. Chen Tian-shun, a veteran semiconductor industry executive, served as co-producer alongside Chiang Hsien-pin⁷. According to Chiang, the film's origin was the 2019 memorial service for semiconductor pioneer Hu Ding-Hua, after which a friend asked CNEX to document the subject. Chiang and Hsiao took it on.

From 2019 to the completed film in 2024: five years. Official materials put the number of interviewees at "more than 80"⁸. Editor Chen Bo-Wen, working with Hsiao for the fourth time; score by Lin Sheng-Hsiang.

✦ "Documenting this generation of aging pioneers is a race against time." — Chiang Hsien-pin at the New York premiere⁹

During production, IDFA Bertha Fund (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, CCDF (CNEX Chinese Documentary Film Proposal Conference), and the Ministry of Culture all provided support⁸. No official TSMC funding, no evidence of direct government investment — the entire film is a hybrid funding structure of "independent documentary production × private industry sponsorship × international public funds."

From a Breakfast Meeting to Arizona

The film's chronological anchor starts in 1974.

That year, Y.S. Sun, K.T. Li, Pan Wen-Yuan, and four others held a breakfast meeting at Xiao Xin-Xin Soy Milk Shop and settled on the "Integrated Circuit Technology Development Plan"¹⁰. That same year, Pan Wen-Yuan wrote the IC plan in Room 508 of the Grand Hotel. In 1976, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) signed a 10-year technology transfer agreement with RCA in the U.S., and a first cohort of 19 "seed corps" members traveled to Princeton for 3-inch wafer process training, pulling yields from 50% to 70% within six months¹¹.

1980: United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) founded. 1985: Morris Chang came to Taiwan as ITRI president, proposing the Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) plan. 1987: TSMC founded, pioneering the pure foundry model¹¹. 1990s: Lin Ben-Jian's immersion lithography breakthrough. 2020s: the US-China chip war, CHIPS Act, TSMC's Arizona plant, the China export ban, the AI wave.

The chronological endpoint falls at March 2025 — CC Wei entering the White House to meet Trump and announce TSMC's additional $100 billion investment in the United States²².

✦ "If the nation had been comfortable at that time, Taiwan would not have had the miracle of the semiconductor industry. The spirit of the mountain-makers is 'born from adversity.'" — Hsiao Chu-chen¹³

Hsiao repeatedly emphasized in interviews that this is a story about people: "Technology is a part of culture, a part of Taiwanese people's lives, and technology, the Silicon Shield, and our destiny are all tightly intertwined."¹⁴

"Taiwan Never Stole"

March 2025: Trump accused Taiwan of stealing America's semiconductor industry. Three months later, CommonWealth Magazine's English edition ran its report on the film under the headline: "Taiwan Never Stole from the US!"¹⁵

The timing wasn't coincidental. Cinema Escapist's review positioned the film as a "timely and fitting visual companion" to Chris Miller's Chip War — but more Taiwan-centric, with more insider access and more everyday Taiwanese voices¹⁶.

Reviews also carried reservations: "unapologetically lionizes," "self-sacrificing framing," narrative construction around "national crisis is not yet over." Hsiao herself noted in public interviews an observation: if the semiconductor development plan had been put to a popular vote at the time, it might never have passed. That observation itself reveals the tension between Taiwan's early tech industry decisions and democratic deliberation.

📝 Curator's Note
From the perspective of authoritarian developmentalism, "a popular vote wouldn't have passed" can be read two ways: one is "far-sighted elites drove national progress," the other is "a long-term investment that bypassed democratic deliberation." The director doesn't explicitly choose a side in the film — and that ambiguity is itself proof of the film's political maturity.

The American tour itself carried diplomatic undertones — Stanford (Hoover Institution + APARC), UCLA (Samueli + LA TECO), Columbia (Weatherhead East Asian Institute), New York (Deputy Director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York Chang Li-Hsien attended), Purdue, Wisconsin, and Michigan (Director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago Lei Yan-Feng attended) — most co-organized by the relevant TECO office and local semiconductor industry-academia circles¹⁷.

The Mountain-Maker Who Wasn't There

One evening in June 2025, 84-year-old Morris Chang and his wife walked into Hsinchu Vieshow — "not a private screening, but buying tickets like ordinary moviegoers and joining the audience"¹⁹. A month earlier, on May 10, the premiere at Hsinchu Vieshow's A13 Large Format Cinema had been attended by Minister of Culture Lee Yuan, Lin Hwai-Min, NTHU President Kao Wei-Yuan, and Stan Shih-Tai¹⁸. The Changs chose an ordinary ticketed showing in June and went in as two regular audience members.

Hsiao said afterward that she was "nervous and excited, and of course a little regretful" — regretful that she had never managed to get Morris Chang to sit in front of a camera for a proper interview¹⁹.

Two months later, in August 2025, former President Tsai Ing-wen and former Vice President Chen Chien-jen attended a screening. Tsai remarked: "I am very grateful for this film. The director and producers have helped us present in a clear and structured way what has happened over these years and the challenges we have faced."²⁰

By October 2025, the nationwide box office broke NT$32 million, placing it in the top five highest-grossing documentaries in Taiwan's film history (per the production team's announcement)²¹.

The mountain-maker didn't give the interview. He chose the most ordinary showing, went in, and let the film speak for him.

This epic made without him — paradoxically — ensured that the story of building the mountain no longer belongs to any single person.

Further Reading

• Semiconductor Industry — The full arc of Taiwan's semiconductor industry from the RCA technology transfer to the Arizona plant; the industrial backdrop of this film
• Science Park Development — Hsinchu Science Park as the physical geography of the mountain-makers; the stage on which this film is set
• Cognitive Warfare — "Taiwan Never Stole" responds to the 2025 US-China information battlefield; in parallel with this film's political framing
• Taiwan Strait Crisis and Cross-Strait Relations — The geopolitical backdrop of the "Silicon Shield" concept; the film's implicit argumentative premise
• Lin Chi-er — Taiwanese-American NASA astronaut who lectured at National Central University in the same period (4/22); another track of Taiwan's soft power

References