Taiwan's Domestic Cinema: The Voice Beside the Screen and a History of a Film That Died and Came Back to Life

30-Second Overview: Domestic cinema has been declared dead at least three times—the golden age of Taiwanese-language films was strangled, local audiences departed following the New Cinema movement, and in 2003, domestic film box office shares accounted for only 0.36% of Taiwan's total. Each time, it has come back to life, and each cycle of life and death revolves around the same question: whose Taiwan should be told on screen, and in whose language? From the biànshì (film narrators) in 1930s theaters who improvised in Taiwanese, to the 1956 release of 《Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan》 which triggered a boom of thousands of Taiwanese-language films; from Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang winning major awards at European film festivals, and Ang Lee standing on the Oscar stage twice, to Wei Te-sheng using five languages to film the NT$530 million hit 《Cape No. 7》 in 2008—this is not a linear progression from bad to good; it is Taiwan's repeated struggle to reclaim "using our own language and showing our own faces."

In the Taiwanese theaters of 1930, the people on the screen did not speak, but the person beside the screen did.

He was called a biànshì (film narrator). Halfway through a movie, he would stand by the curtain and use Taiwanese to improvise, sentence by sentence, the plot, the characters' inner thoughts, and even his own views on current affairs for the audience below. That year, there were approximately sixty biànshì in Taiwan—forty-one of Japanese descent and nineteen of Taiwanese descent—each of whom had to pass an examination by the Police Section to practice their profession¹. The most famous, Zhan Tianma, would perform 《Anaguma Tengu》 in Dadaocheng to packed houses; Lu Bing-ding of the Cultural Association would explain 《Arctic Exploration》 in Chiayi, but his commentary often drifted into political critique, only to be stopped on the spot by Japanese police².

That was the earliest sound of Taiwanese cinema—not found within the film reel, but in the mouth of a living person. And that voice spoke Taiwanese.

The stories within the reels themselves did not belong entirely to the people of Taiwan from the beginning. In 1925, Liu Xi-yang led the Taiwan Film Research Association to produce 《Whose Fault?》, which is regarded as the first feature film self-produced by Taiwanese people³. However, by 1943, the colonial government-led 《The Bell of Sha-yun》 cast the popular Li Xianglan in the lead role, turning a real incident involving the drowning of an Atayal girl into a Kōminka (imperialization) propaganda film designed to call upon indigenous youth to serve Japan⁴. From live oral narration to Kōminka propaganda, during the first forty years of Taiwanese cinema, what was said on screen and who said it was almost never something the people on the island could decide for themselves.

The 1943 film 《The Bell of Sha-yun》, starring the popular Li Xianglan, is a representative of Kōminka cinema during the late Japanese colonial period. From the biànshì standing beside live photography to the colonial government's propaganda films, the starting point of Taiwanese cinema was one where what was said on screen was almost entirely decided by others. Photo: Shochiku/Manshu (Public Domain).

Ninety years later on this same island, a film called 《Cape No. 7》 allowed five languages to speak simultaneously in theaters: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, English, and Paiwan⁵. In the ninety years between, Taiwanese cinema has been declared dead several times, only to come back to life again. Each cycle of life and death appears on the surface to be about box office numbers, censorship, or markets, but at its core, it is always the same question: whose Taiwan should be told on screen, in whose language, and who gets to appear on that screen?

What this article intends to say is not "how domestic cinema went from bad to good." That would be too convenient a line, and too much of a falsehood. The true version is a history of being repeatedly strangled, only to come back to life.

Over a Thousand Films, Yet No One Remembers

First, let's address something most Taiwanese people do not know: Taiwan was once the world's third-largest producer of feature films, trailing only Japan and India⁶.

That was the era of Tâi-gí (Taiwanese-language) films. In January 1956, a gezaixi (Taiwanese opera) film titled 《薛平貴與王寶釧》 (Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan) premiered in Taipei. Directed by He Chi-ming, it was produced by Chen Cheng-san, the head of the gezaixi troupe Ma Liao Gongle Society. It was Taiwan's first 35mm gezaixi film in the Taiwanese language; despite its low production cost, it grossed approximately NT$1.2 million at the box office—more than triple its cost⁷. A single film proved that "Taiwanese people will pay for Taiwanese-language films made by Taiwanese for Taiwanese," and a craze was ignited.

Over the next decade, Tâi-gí films grew like wild grass. In 1958, production surged to 76 films, marking the first peak⁸. Director Shin Qi-kuang filmed 12 films in the single year of 1969⁹. In Yingge, Lin Tuan-chiu established his own Hushan Film Studio and founded Yufeng Film Industry, aiming to turn Tâi-gí filmmaking into a standardized industry¹⁰. Genres were diverse: gezaixi, melodramas, comedies like 《王哥柳哥遊台灣》 (Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan), spy films following the 007 craze such as 《天字第一號》 (Number One), and children's fantasy films like 《大俠梅花鹿》 (The Great Hero Plum Deer)¹¹.

Exactly how many were made? This question itself is a microcosm of the fate of Tâi-gí cinema: no one can provide an exact figure. The educational website of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI) states "over a thousand," the Taipei Times reports an estimate between "1,200 to 1,500," and some academic research even suggests "more than two thousand"¹². Why such a discrepancy? Because there is no consensus on the start and end years of the calculation, whether to include Xiamen-dialect films, or whether to count films that passed censorship versus those that actually premiered. More fundamentally, the vast majority of copies have been lost. The 1,238 items archived by TFAI represent "the number currently preserved," not the total production at the time; the institute itself states that what remains is less than one-fifth of the original output¹³.

For an industry that was once the world's third-largest feature film producer, most of its works no longer even exist as physical film, and even the total count remains unclear. This is not merely a matter of film stock decaying.

The common narrative is that Tâi-gí films were "shoddy and poorly made," so they were naturally phased out by the market and forgotten by history. While this narrative is smooth, it reverses cause and effect. Historian Su Chih-heng offered a different version in his book 《毋甘願的電影史》 (An Unwilling Film History): Tâi-gí films did not die of natural causes; they were strangled¹⁴.

It was policy, not the audience, that strangled them. In 1957, the amendment to the "Film Stock Import Tax Regulations" excluded Tâi-gí films from tax exemptions; in other words, those making Taiwanese-language films had to pay more for film stock than anyone else¹⁵. Starting in 1959, official restrictions were placed on Tâi-gí narrators (bianshi); in 1962, the launch of TTV brought audiences watching gezaixi and listening to Taiwanese stories directly into their living rooms; Mandarin films received subsidies, while Tâi-gí films did not¹⁶. Su Chih-heng's argument is even sharper: by controlling film stock imports, the government actively manufactured the stereotype that "Taiwanese = black and white = vulgar." While Mandarin films could utilize color and widescreen, Tâi-gí films were stuck in black and white. The label of "cheap" was something manufactured, rather than an inherent quality of Tâi-gí cinema¹⁴.

📝 Curator's Note: Our modern perception that "Taiwanese films are crude" may itself be the result of a previous round of policy. An industry is deprived of the conditions for upgrading (color, funding, talent flow), and then its resulting "cheapness" is used as a reason to phase it out—it is a perfect closed loop. Therefore, the true point of the phrase "over a thousand films, yet no one remembers" is "why did it become so that no one remembers." Being forgotten is sometimes a decision, rather than a natural consequence of time.

In 1969, Mandarin film production surpassed Tâi-gí film production for the first time¹⁷. The last Tâi-gí film was 《陳三五娘》 (Chen San and Wu Niang), starring Yang Li-hua in 1981¹⁸. It wasn't until the 1990s that researchers began to rescue this history; it took until 2017 for King's College London to host the first English-language academic seminar dedicated specifically to discussing Tâi-gí films¹⁹. For an industry that was once the world's third-largest feature film producer, it took thirty years after its death and half a globe of distance before anyone finally treated it with the seriousness of historical research.

Healthy, Realistic, and Off-Limits

As Tâi-gí (Taiwanese language) films exited the stage, the screen was taken over by another language.

In September 1954, the Agricultural Education Company merged with the Taiwan Motion Picture Company to form the Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC), using equipment provided via US aid²⁰. Mandarin-language films gained an industrial foundation, but their direction was determined by policy. In 1963, Gong Hong took over as General Manager of CMPC and launched a movement called "Healthy Realism." He provided a very precise definition: "Health is edification; realism is the countryside"²¹.

These six words are worth pausing on. They meant that while films should be realistic, they could only depict a clean, rural kind of realism capable of edifying the heart—not the dark side of society, and not true conflict. The 1964 film Oyster Girl was the representative work of this movement; it was CMPC's first self-produced color widescreen film (note: not "Taiwan's first color film"), co-directed by Li Chia and Li Hang, and won Best Feature Film at the 11th Asian Film Festival²². The following year, Duck Breeder continued along the same path.

Beyond Healthy Realism, three other forces were operating simultaneously in Mandarin-language cinema during the 1960s and 70s.

The first was the literary films of Qiong Yao. Starting with Wan-chun's Cousin, directed by Li Hang in 1965, approximately twenty-five films were made within five years, launching a whole generation of stars²³. The most famous were the "Two Qins and Two Lins": Qin Han, Qin Xianglin, Brigitte Lin, and Lin Feng-chiao. Brigitte Lin debuted in 1973 with Window, later becoming a legend in the Chinese-language film industry; Lin Feng-chiao won Best Actress at the Golden Horse Awards in 1979²⁴. Qiong Yao's tears were the shared youth of many people during that era.

Source: Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), official records of various film festivals

The second force was wuxia (martial arts): In 1967, King Hu's Dragon Inn became the annual box office champion in Taiwan, kicking off a decade-long trend of martial arts films²⁵. King Hu did more than just sell tickets; he turned wuxia into an aesthetic. In 1975, his A Touch of Zen won the Technical Grand Prize at the 28th Cannes Film Festival, making it the second Chinese-language film to win at Cannes after Li Han-hsien's Lady Precious Stream in 1962²⁶. One detail illustrates the predicament of Taiwanese cinema at the time: A Touch of Zen was entered into the festival under the name "Hong Kong" at the invitation of French critics, rather than being recommended by the Taiwan government²⁶. King Hu's wuxia language—characterized by bamboo forests, negative space, and rhythm—later influenced Tsui Hark and Ang Lee; the bamboo forest scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a tribute to him²⁷.

The third force was propaganda patriotic films: In 1971, when the Republic of China withdrew from the United Nations, public sentiment was unsettled. One of the government's responses, in the words of TFAI, was to make films "to stabilize public morale and promote government achievements"²⁸. This included the 1974 film The Eternal Heroes, promoted by political warfare staffer Wang Sheng, directed by Ting Shan-hsi, and starring Ke Chun-hsiung; followed by The Eighty Heroes in 1976 and The Legend of Jieqiao in 1977²⁹. In many people's memories, these films are linked to "school group viewings"; however, to be honest, there is no primary source documentation to confirm that "schools forced group bookings"—what can be confirmed is that they were frequently rebroadcast on television during holidays³⁰.

📝 Curator's Note: From Tâi-gí films to Healthy Realism to patriotic films, if you view "what can be said on screen" as a central thread, you will find that the history of domestic cinema has actually been answering the same question—it is just that the answers were written by policy, rather than by audiences or creators. The problem with Tâi-gí films was "you aren't allowed to use this language to film properly"; the problem with Healthy Realism was "you are only allowed to write this one kind of truth"; and the problem with patriotic films was "what is a movie for?". Language, subject matter, and purpose: three gates, opening and closing in turn.

It is also worth mentioning the origin of the term "Golden Horse." In 1957, a private organization held a single Tâi-gí film festival under the name "Golden Horse Awards"³¹. In 1962, the Government Information Office founded the official Golden Horse Awards, which nominally only awarded Mandarin-language films, and the award ceremony was specifically scheduled around the birthday of Chiang Kai-shek³¹. The same name first belonged to Tâi-gí films before being reclaimed by Mandarin-language cinema—this in itself is a small footnote to the linguistic politics of that era.

The Peeled Apple

In 1982, the Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC) made a decision that seemed unremarkable at the time but, in hindsight, changed everything: they allowed a group of unknown young directors to make films.

That year's Tales of Tender Years consisted of four segments directed by Tao Te-chen, Edward Yang, Ke I-cheng, and Chang Yi³². The following year, The Son's Great Puppet, an adaptation of Huang Chun-ming's novel, featured three segments directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tseng Chuang-hsiang, and Wan Jen³³. Taiwan New Cinema began with these two films.

However, the New Cinema movement immediately collided with an old gatekeeper. In The Son's Great Puppet, the segment The Taste of Apple directed by Wan Jen was subject to interference from the Kuomintang's Literature and Art Association because it depicted the authentic reality of life at the bottom of society; they demanded edits, an incident that became known as the "Peeled Apple Incident" ³⁴. Ultimately, under public pressure, the apple was saved. A small pair of scissors had nearly peeled away the nascent ability of Taiwanese cinema to tell the truth. On January 24, 1987, the Taiwan New Cinema Manifesto, drafted by James Chang, was published in the China Times Sunday supplement, serving as a formal declaration for the movement³⁵.

The three names associated with New Cinema would all go on to become world-class directors.

In 1989, Hou Hsiao-hsien won the Golden Lion at Venice for A City of Sadness, marking the first time Taiwanese cinema stood atop one of the world's three major film festivals. Photo: Gorup de Besanez, CC BY-SA 4.0.

From The Sandwich Man and A Time to Live to കാല戀風塵 (Attachment), Hou Hsiao-hsien developed a long, slow cinematic language that transformed Taiwan's local landscapes, memories, and sense of time³⁶. On September 15, 1989, his A City of Sadness won the Golden Lion at the 46th Venice Film Festival, marking the first time a Taiwanese film won the top prize at one of the "Big Three" film festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin)³⁷. Even more remarkable was that the film directly tackled the then-highly sensitive subject of the February 28 Incident, using the rise and fall of a single family to profile that period of history³⁷. How much is Hou Hsiao-hsien's long-take aesthetic valued internationally? Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami championed his Good Morning, Night, Akira Kurosawa reportedly watched it four times and admitted he couldn't film like that, and Hirokazu Kore-eda has also been deeply influenced by him³⁸.

Trailer for the 4K digital restoration of 《A City of Sadness》. In 1989, it won the Golden Lion at Venice, bringing the February 28 Incident to the big screen with serious intent—yet in Taiwanese cinemas that same year, domestic films were losing their audience.

Edward Yang took a different path. He filmed cities and the alienation and violence of urbanites; following 《One Day in North Beach》 and 《Terrorizers》, his 1991 film 《A Brighter Summer Day》 had an original runtime of 237 minutes, adapted from a real-life juvenile murder case in 1961³⁹. In 2000, his 《Yi Yi》 won Best Director at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival (note: it was Best Director, not the Palme d'Or)⁴⁰. On June 29, 2007, he passed away from colon cancer at the age of fifty-nine⁴¹. His films influenced Hirokazu Kore-eda⁴² and Ryusuke Hamaguchi⁴³.

Trailer for the 4K restoration of Edward Yang's 《Yi Yi》 (Janus Films). Best Director at Cannes in 2000, later ranked 90th in Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time.

The third is Tsai Ming-liang. Starting with 1992's 《The Terrorizers》, he turned his lens toward loneliness, desire, and time so slow it was almost stagnant⁴⁴. In 1994, his 《Vive L'Amour》 won the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice Film Festival alongside 《Before the Rain》; the jury president that year was David Lynch⁴⁵. A widely circulated error needs specific correction here: 《Vive L'Amour》 won the Golden Lion, not the "Critics' Week Award" ⁴⁵. Later, his films 《The River》 and 《What Time Is It There?》 continued to win awards at film festivals, and in 2009, 《Face》 became the first film to be added to the collection of the Louvre⁴⁶.

Regarding the place of these three directors in film history, there is also a commonly misstated version that needs correcting. The circulating claim is that "there are three Taiwanese films in the French 《Cahiers du Cinéma》 Greatest Films of All Time list," which is incorrect. Checking the 2008 《Cahiers du Cinéma》 top 100 list, there were no Taiwanese films included⁴⁷. The ones that truly wrote Taiwanese cinema into the history books are the British 《Sight & Sound》 2022 Greatest Films of All Time list: Edward Yang's 《A Brighter Summer Day》 was ranked 78th, and 《Yi Yi》 was ranked 90th⁴⁸.

Award-Winning, but Unwatched

This is the most counterintuitive turning point in the history of Taiwanese cinema, and also the place most easily turned into "toxic positivity" or cynical clichés.

The New Cinema movement won the Golden Lion and Best Director awards in Europe; for the first time, Taiwanese films were seen by the world. Yet, during that same period, local films were dying in Taiwan's movie theaters. From 1996 onwards, the annual production of local films dropped to between 15 and 20 titles, with a market share of only one to two percent⁴⁹. The rock bottom came in 2003: that year, only about 15 local films were produced across Taiwan, with a total box office of approximately NT$15 million, accounting for just 0.36% of the total box office in Taiwan—not even one percent⁵⁰.

Source: Taiwan Glory Magazine, TFAI statistics (Local film market share %)

0.36%. Say that number out loud: out of every hundred Taiwanese people entering a theater, not even one was there to see a local film. And during those same years, the names Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang were shining brightly at Cannes and Venice. The films of an island were blooming outside the walls, while withering inside them.

As a result, a saying grew among the public, one that flows very smoothly: "It's all the fault of the New Cinema. Those art films are boring and incomprehensible; they drove the audience away, which is why local films died."

This claim deserves serious consideration because it stems from genuine resentment; many people truly went to the theaters, found the films incomprehensible or fell asleep, and then never went back to see a local film again. However, blaming the entire slump of local cinema solely on the New Cinema movement simplifies a multi-causal collapse into a single scapegoat.

It is true that the New Cinema movement created a distance between a segment of the audience and the viewing habits associated with mainstream commercial films; this point should not be evaded. But the collapse of local cinema in the 1990s and 2000s was driven by more structural factors acting simultaneously: Hollywood blockbusters aggressively conquering the Taiwan market, the easing of import quotas for foreign films after Taiwan joined the WTO, video tapes and cable TV changing how people watched movies, a massive withdrawal of local capital from the film industry, and movie theater distribution being dominated by imported films⁵¹. An entire industry was crushed by this whole set of factors, not driven away by a few award-winning art films.

📝 Curator's Note: The reason the saying "New Cinema killed local films" is so seductive is that it turns a complex market collapse into a story with faces—there are villains (incomprehensible directors) and victims (confused audiences). But the truth usually has no face. Treating Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang as the culprits behind the decline of local cinema is equivalent to demanding that a group of creators take responsibility for the collapse of an entire industrial ecosystem. Their cost was actually something else: they won world-class awards but failed to trade them for a local audience—glory and the market were two completely disconnected things during those decades.

This was the second death of local cinema. Tâi-gí (Taiwanese-language) films were strangled by policy; this time, they were drowned by the market. The difference lies in this: because the causes of death were different, the mechanisms for resurrection will also be different. Tâi-gí films never returned, but this time, people are waiting for a way to invite the audience back into the theaters.

Source: Records from three major film festivals cited in this text (Venice Golden Lion, Cannes Best Director, Film History Top 100) + statistics on local film production and box office (annual production of 15–20 films since 1996, 2003 Taiwan market share of 0.36%)⁴⁹⁵⁰⁵¹

To Reach the World's Screens, One Must First Leave Their Own Island

During those dozen or so years of withering behind the Wall, a director born in Taiwan chose a different path—walking outside the Wall, and walking further than anyone else.

Ang Lee at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. While local cinemas could hardly be seen showing domestic films, this Taiwanese director was twice being crowned in Hollywood's highest temple. Photo: nicolas genin, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Ang Lee. His "Father Trilogy"—Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, and Eat Drink Man Woman—was filmed between 1991 and 1994, with The Wedding Banquet winning the Golden Bear at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival in 1993⁵². He then moved West toward Hollywood: his 2001 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four awards at the 73rd Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film, and became the first non-English language film in American history to cross the $100 million mark at the box office, earning $213.5 million worldwide⁵³. In 2006, Brokeback Mountain made him the first Asian person to win the Oscar for Best Director; in 2013, Life of Pi made him the first Asian director to win the award twice⁵⁴.

Ang Lee's existence makes the term "history of domestic cinema" complicated. At a time when Taiwanese films could hardly be seen in local cinemas, a Taiwanese director was in Hollywood's highest temple, telling stories to the entire world using English, Mandarin, and various other languages. He is the pride of Taiwanese cinema, but his success was, to some extent, precisely because he left that withering domestic market. This is another answer to the question of "making it onto the screen": sometimes, to reach the world's screens, one must first leave their own island.

Five Languages Returning to the Screen Together

On August 22, 2008, a film titled 《Cape No. 7》 was released. No one could have predicted what would happen next.

The director, Wei Te-sheng, was not yet a big name at the time. To raise funds for this NT$50 million production, he mortgaged his own house and borrowed NT$30 million⁵⁵. The film went on to achieve a total Taiwan box office of NT$530 million, with NT$230 million from Taipei and NT$300 million from outside Taipei⁵⁶. It dominated the box office as number one for eight consecutive weeks. The market share of local films jumped from a low of 0.36% in 2003 to 12.09% in 2008—an increase of over thirty times⁵⁷.

But the most important thing about 《Cape No. 7》 was not the box office numbers; it was what it brought back to the screen.

In this film, five languages are spoken simultaneously: Mandarin, Tâi-gí (Taiwanese), Japanese, English, and Paiwan⁵. A frustrated band vocalist speaks a mix of Mandarin and Tâi-gí; a town representative speaks authentic Tâi-gí from the moment he opens his mouth; a love letter spanning sixty years is written in Japanese; and there is also the Paiwan language of the Indigenous people. It was neither a "Mandarin film" nor a "Tâi-gí film"; it was simply what Taiwan truly looks like—various languages mixed together, with none overpowering the others.

Let's pull the lens back to the beginning. In 1930, the bianshi (film commentator) in the theater used Tâi-gí to provide narration for silent films. Nearly eighty years passed in between—a period where Tâi-gí films were suppressed, Mandarin policies dominated, and the New Cinema movement allowed dialects to quietly return to art films. By the time of 《Cape No. 7》 in 2008, the screen could finally and confidently speak five languages at once, and people all over Taiwan queued up to see it. The third revival of local cinema was, in essence, a linguistic restoration: Taiwanese people heard the sounds of their own everyday speech on the big screen once again.

Official trailer for 《Cape No. 7》. Five languages—Mandarin, _Tâi-gí, Japanese, English, and Paiwan—on one stage, bringing Taiwanese people back to the cinema in the summer of 2008._

📝 Curator's Note: 《Cape No. 7》 is often criticized by elites as being "commercially successful but artistically inferior to the masters of New Cinema." This criticism is not wrong, but it asks the wrong question. What 《Cape No. 7》 sought to solve was never "how deep can we film," but rather "are Taiwanese people willing to spend money in a cinema to see their own stories"—which is exactly what the New Cinema era failed to resolve for over a decade. Its historical significance lies not in how good it is, but in what it proved: that a film using Taiwan's own languages and telling the stories of its own people can be both critically acclaimed and a box-office hit. It reclaimed what was stripped away from Tâi-gí films half a century ago—the ability to film well in one's own language and still be commercially viable.

Wei Te-sheng did not stop there. In 2011, he directed 《Seediq Bale》, produced by John Woo, which used the 1930 Wushe Incident as its subject to tell that history of resistance against Japanese rule from an Indigenous perspective. The film cost approximately NT$720 million, and the two parts, 《Sun Flag》 and 《Rainbow Bridge》, earned a combined Taiwan box office of approximately NT$810 million⁵⁸. It represented Taiwan in the race for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, making it into the top nine, but ultimately failing to reach the final five⁵⁹. That year, the market share of local films surged to 17.46%, setting a historical high at the time⁵⁷. In 2014, he also produced 《KANO》, directed by Ma Chih-hsiang, which tells the story of the Kagi Agricultural and Industrial School baseball team making it to Koshien in 1931⁶⁰.

The wave triggered by 《Cape No. 7》 was not just about Wei Te-sheng, but a return of entire genres. There was Nio Hsiung-tze's 《Man Tai》 in 2010, and Giddens Ko's 《You Are the Apple of My Eye》 in 2011—the latter earning NT$425 million in Taiwan and becoming one of the highest-grossing Chinese-language films in Hong Kong history; and 《Our Times》 in 2015, which earned NT$410 million in Taiwan⁶¹. Taiwanese people became accustomed to "going to the cinema to watch local films" once again. Local cinema came back to life, and this time, it learned how to speak to its audience.

The Decade When Local Films Were Box Office Poison, and Its Opposite

If we wind the timeline back, only then can we clearly see what Cape No. 7 actually saved.

The phrase "local films = box office poison" was the true collective impression of Taiwanese society regarding domestic cinema during the decade from the 1990s to 2007⁶². Distributors were afraid to invest, theaters were afraid to schedule them, and audiences didn't want to watch them, creating a death spiral that no one could break. It was an era where telling your friends "I'm going to see a local film" would get you laughed at.

However, the "poison" label of that decade and the stigma of "shoddy production" attached to Taiwanese-language films were actually two versions of the same mechanism: an industry being defined by its consequences after losing its necessary conditions. Taiwanese-language films were stripped of their film stock and funding; post-New Cinema local films were stripped of their market and distribution channels. The difference lies in the fact that the latter eventually found an antidote in Cape No. 7, while the former did not.

This is also why understanding the history of local cinema cannot be limited to looking only at award-winning masters. A complete history of local cinema is the sum of all these parts: the industry of Taiwanese-language films, policies of healthy realism, the genres of wuxia and patriotic films, the artistry of the New Cinema movement, the "poison" of the low points, and the revival following Cape No. 7. Only picking out four world-class names like Hou, Yang, Tsai, and Lee is equivalent to looking only at the brightest dots within a much larger history.

Contemporary Era: Awards, Box Office, and the Politics of an Award

Following Cape No. 7, Taiwanese cinema entered a more mature and complex stage.

On the side of auteur cinema, Chung Meng-hung's 2019 film A Sun won Best Feature Film at the 56th Golden Horse Awards and represented Taiwan in the race for the Oscars, making it into the top 15 shortlist but failing to reach the final five⁶³. In 2017, Huang Hsin-yao's The Great Buddha+ swept five awards at the 54th Golden Horse Awards, while Yang Ya-che's Dear Ex won Best Feature Film that same year⁶⁴.

Official trailer for The Great Buddha+. Using black-and-white imagery, _Tâi-gí (Taiwanese) narration, and a dashcam perspective, Huang Hsin-yao turned the absurdity of the social underclass into the biggest winner of the 2017 Golden Horse Awards._

Genre films are also evolving: In 2019, Hsu Han-chiang adapted the video game by Red Candle Games into Detention, turning the subject of the White Terror into a horror film; it earned NT$259 million across Taiwan, making it the domestic box office champion of that year⁶⁵. In 2023, Marry My Dead Body earned NT$363 million in Taiwan and even reached number seven on Netflix's global non-English film chart⁶⁶.

4K trailer for Detention. Turning the White Terror into a video game, and then into a box-office hit horror film—contemporary Taiwanese cinema has begun using the shell of genre films to contain histories that were previously untouchable.

There is one more very special film to mention: Fu Yu's 2023 film The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon earned only NT$47 million at the Taiwan box office, which can hardly be called a hit; however, after its release in China in 2024, it became a massive sensation, grossing 665 million renminbi⁶⁷. The fact that a Taiwanese film performed modestly in its own market but became a phenomenon on the other side of the strait illustrates how delicate the cross-strait cultural tensions are for contemporary Taiwanese cinema.

Meanwhile, cinemas themselves are facing another crisis. Taiwan's total box office revenue fell from approximately NT$10.1 billion in 2019 to approximately NT$6 billion in 2024, a loss of forty percent; during the same period, Netflix's streaming market share in Taiwan surged to 83%⁶⁸. Audiences haven't stopped watching films; they have simply turned their living rooms back into cinemas. This is a repetition of the same script seen in 1962 when TTV began broadcasting, moving gēzáxí (Taiwanese opera) audiences from theaters into their homes. Streaming platforms are also investing heavily in Taiwanese audiovisual content; series such as Light the Night, The Golden Era, The Magician on the Overpass, and Scarlet have shifted resources from the big screen to the small screen⁶⁹.

Finally, we return to that award called the Golden Horse.

In November 2018, at the 55th Golden Horse Awards, director Fu Yu's documentary Our Youth in Taiwan won Best Documentary. During her acceptance speech, she said: "I hope that one day, our country can be regarded as a truly independent entity; this is my greatest wish as a Taiwanese person."⁷⁰ This statement triggered immense controversy across the straits. Ang Lee, who hosted the ceremony that night, later told reporters: "Taiwan is free and the film festival is open. You can say whatever you want to say."⁷¹ The following year, on August 7, 2019, the China Film Administration announced a suspension of mainland Chinese films and personnel from participating in the Golden Horse Awards; China's Golden Rooster Awards also deliberately scheduled their ceremony on the same day as the Golden Horse⁷².

How one views this matter is a matter of personal judgment; Taiwan.md is only responsible for recording the facts: an award that was originally regarded as a neutral sanctuary for Chinese-language cinema became embroiled in cross-strait political maneuvering because of an acceptance speech. And you will find that the core of this controversy is actually the same as the core of the entire history of domestic cinema: on the screen and on the stage, who should speak, with what identity, and about what kind of Taiwan?

Conclusion: They Have Been Shouting This for Seventy Years

Returning to the narrator standing beside the screen at the very beginning.

There is a gap of nearly eighty years between that image of him providing Tâi-gí (Taiwanese) narration for silent films and the 2008 release of Cape No. 7, which echoed through theaters in five different languages. During these eighty years, Taiwanese cinema has been declared dead at least three times: Taiwanese-language films were strangled by policy; after the New Cinema movement, they were drowned by the market; and during a decade of low points, they were labeled "box office poison." Yet, it has come back to life time and time again. And with every resurrection, Taiwan has reclaimed one thing: using its own language, portraying its own faces, and putting its own stories onto the screen.

So next time you see a headline in the news claiming "Local Films are Dead Again," you will likely remember: they have been shouting that sentence for seventy years already.

References

• Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI) Digital Museum and Taiwan Film History Education Network — Primary sources for Taiwanese-language film catalogs, healthy realism, and propaganda patriotic films: tfai.openmuseum.tw, edumovie-tfai.org.tw
• Su Chih-heng, 《Unwilling Film History: The Fate of Taiwanese-language Films》 — Key discourse on how Taiwanese-language films were suppressed by policy and how the "black and white = vulgar" stereotype was manufactured.
• Wikipedia entries for "Taiwanese cinema," "Taiwanese-language film," "Taiwan New Cinema," "Golden Horse Awards," and various individual film entries — Index of years, award editions, and box office figures (cross-referenced with official sources).
• Sight & Sound (BFI) 2022 Greatest Films of All Time, Cahiers du Cinéma 2008 Top 100 — Film history status verification: bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound
• Taiwan Guanghua Magazine, Variety, CommonWealth Magazine, The Reporter — Historical local market share figures, Golden Horse political incidents, and industry data.

Image Sources

This article uses 4 images, all cached in public/article-images/art/ to avoid hotlinking from source servers:

• Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng (_Days_) — Photo: hinnk, CC BY-SA 3.0 (hero)
• Still from _The Bell of Sha Yun_ — Shochiku / Manshu, Public domain
• Hou Hsiao-hsien at the 1989 Venice Golden Lion Awards — Photo: Gorup de Besanez, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Ang Lee at the 2009 Venice Film Festival — Photo: nicolas genin, CC BY-SA 2.0

Further Reading

• Hou Hsiao-hsien: The master of long takes who won the Venice Golden Lion and brought the February 28 Incident to the silver screen
• Edward Yang: An observer of urban life whose two works entered the Sight & Sound greatest films of all time list
• Tsai Ming-liang: A Venice Golden Lion winner who brought slow cinema into the Louvre
• Ang Lee: From Taiwan to Hollywood, a two-time Academy Award winner for Best Director
• Wei Te-sheng: The man who filmed 《Cape No. 7》 in five languages and revitalized local Taiwanese cinema
• Invisible Nation: Another way of seeing Taiwan through Ge Jing-wen's documentary
• Taiwanese Sentimentality: Do we need Koreans to "like" something first before we dare say our old houses are beautiful?: The 1989 Venice Golden Lion for 《A City of Sadness》 and its Taipei box office success happened in the same year; international recognition and local resonance are not necessarily a zero-sum game