Wei Te-sheng: Yongkang 1969, the Taiwanese Epic Filmmaker from Cape No. 7's Record-Breaking Box Office to the Venice Main Competition

30-second overview: Wei Te-sheng was born on August 16, 1969, in Yongkang Township, Tainan County (now Yongkang District, Tainan City).¹ He studied electrical engineering at Far East Junior College (now Far East University of Science and Technology) and entered the film industry as an assistant director after graduation.¹ In 2008, he directed Cape No. 7, which grossed approximately NT$530 million, making it the highest-grossing film in Taiwan at the time (P0⚠️ confirms "surpassed NT$100 million"; the NT$530 million figure is a commonly cited number—official statistics are recommended for verification).² In 2011, Seediq Bala was selected for the main competition of the 68th Venice International Film Festival, competing for the Golden Lion.³ That same year, Seediq Bala won Best Feature Film at the 48th Golden Horse Awards.⁴ He is currently preparing the Taiwan Trilogy epic project.

A Director Born in Yongkang, Tainan

Wei Te-sheng was born on August 16, 1969, in Yongkang Township, Tainan County (now Yongkang District, Tainan City).¹ He studied electrical engineering at Far East Junior College (now Far East University of Science and Technology), where his training in the sciences and engineering sharpened his sensitivity to production technology.¹

In the 1990s, Wei entered the film industry as an assistant director, learning on the sets of several Taiwanese directors. It was an era when the Taiwanese film industry was in severe decline, with minimal screen space allocated to local productions. Most young people would not have considered "telling Taiwanese stories" a viable career. In 1995, he wrote and directed a seven-minute short film titled Face Off as a self-recommendation for an assistant position under Edward Yang (director of A Brighter Summer Day)—that pitch letter written in the language of cinema was his most representative early attempt.¹

Coming from an engineering background, his sensitivity to blocking, cinematography, and the timeline came from years of observation on set rather than formal film school training. This "non-traditional path" may be one of the reasons he was later able to break free from the conventions of Taiwanese cinema.

Seediq Bala Came First, Then Cape No. 7

Wei Te-sheng's desire to make Seediq Bala predated Cape No. 7 by more than a decade. In 2000, he self-funded NT$500,000 to produce a five-minute proof-of-concept short for Seediq Bala, taking the piece everywhere in search of financing—but no one was willing to invest.¹

Taiwan's film investment environment told him the subject matter was a commercial dead end. His choice was to first make a film that could attract the market, then use the trust it earned to secure the opportunity to make the Wushe Incident film he truly wanted to tell. Cape No. 7 was the execution of that strategy.

This logic of "first paving the road, then walking the path you want to walk" is a key to understanding Wei Te-sheng's career. He was not a director who "happened to make a hit film"—he was someone with a clear long-term goal who strategically worked toward achieving it.

Cape No. 7: NT$530 Million Box Office Rewrites Taiwanese Cinema

In 2008, Wei Te-sheng directed and self-financed Cape No. 7, using NT$5 million borrowed as the initial production budget, weaving together a modern love story with memories of the Japanese colonial period.² During filming, nearly all his friends were pessimistic; someone told him directly, "You're definitely going to run away." His response: "I think I made something really good."⁵

After its release, the film grossed approximately NT$530 million at the Taiwanese box office (P0 confirms "surpassed NT$100 million"; the NT$530 million figure is commonly cited in existing sources; the Taiwan Creative Content Agency is recommended for exact figures).² This number broke the all-time record for a locally produced Taiwanese film and reignited audience confidence that "Taiwanese stories can be told well."

📝 Curator's note: Behind the "miracle" of Cape No. 7 lies an easily overlooked premise: Wei Te-sheng was under enormous personal financial pressure. If the film had failed at the box office, he would have been saddled with massive personal debt. He made the bet without any safety net; this turns the phrase "only those who believe can see the miracle" from cheap inspirational platitude into a literal, on-the-ground description.⁵

Seediq Bala: NT$700 Million Budget, Venice Main Competition, Golden Horse Best Feature Film

The success of Cape No. 7 earned Wei Te-sheng access to production funding that would previously have been unattainable. In 2011, he directed Seediq Bala (released in two parts: Sun Flag and Rainbow Bridge), based on the 1930 Wushe Incident—the uprising of the Seediq, an Indigenous people of Taiwan, against Japanese colonial rule. The production budget was approximately NT$700 million, more than a hundred times the cost of Cape No. 7.³

The film was selected for the main competition of the 68th Venice International Film Festival, competing for the Golden Lion (not the Berlin International Film Festival or the Busan International Film Festival).³ That same year, it won Best Feature Film at the 48th Golden Horse Awards.⁴

(Note: Some sources incorrectly cite the Berlin or Busan film festivals; the Venice main competition selection is confirmed by P0.)

When discussing his interpretive approach to the Wushe Incident, Wei Te-sheng once said: "Most people interpret the Wushe Incident from a Japanese or Han Chinese perspective. No one has ever looked at it from the perspective of a man on the battlefield." He hoped to capture Indigenous pride: "Han Chinese always say they want to help them, but they have never tried to understand their pride."⁵ This perspective is the core contribution of Seediq Bala to film history: it gave the Wushe Incident its first mainstream cinematic narrative truly told from a Seediq point of view.

The Taiwan Trilogy Epic Project

After Seediq Bala, Wei Te-sheng conceived the more ambitious Taiwan Trilogy project, planned as three films presenting different periods of Taiwanese history—the Dutch colonial era, the Kingdom of Tungning, and the Qing dynasty—with an estimated total budget exceeding NT$4.5 billion.⁵ He also proposed the "City of Abundance" theme park project, using immersive experiences to recreate historical scenes of 17th-century Taiwan.

The project faces enormous funding pressure and execution challenges. Wei Te-sheng has publicly stated that if the Taiwan Trilogy is truly completed, he would be willing to clearly recount his twenty-five years in filmmaking. Behind those words is a director making one final bet on that "belief" of his.⁵

Wei Te-sheng's entire journey can be summarized in this line: "Only those who believe can see the miracle!"⁵ From the NT$5 million loan for Cape No. 7, to the NT$700 million budget for Seediq Bala, to the NT$4.5 billion vision of the Taiwan Trilogy—each step has been harder than the last, and he has kept walking every time.

His Place in Taiwanese Cinema History

Before Wei Te-sheng, locally produced Taiwanese films had virtually disappeared from the market. The artistic achievements of the "Taiwan New Wave" generation—directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang—were internationally recognized, but box office returns remained chronically low, with theater screens almost entirely ceded to Hollywood and Hong Kong films.

Cape No. 7 was not just the success of a single film. It convinced Taiwanese audiences that "Taiwanese stories are worth watching" and convinced investors that "Taiwanese films can be made." This structural shift was the precondition for a subsequent wave of commercially viable Taiwanese films.

Seen this way, Wei Te-sheng's significance in Taiwanese cinema history operates on two levels: one is the works themselves (the artistic and commercial achievements of Cape No. 7 and Seediq Bala), and the other is how he changed the imagination of both Taiwanese audiences and film investors regarding "local cinema"—a more far-reaching impact.[5]

The conventional narrative is that his films were "miracles," the product of "the right time, the right place, the right people" converging by chance. An alternative reading is that behind that chance was a person who spent twenty years walking the path of "make a short film → seek funding → fail → pivot to a smaller project → trade a small success for bigger funding." Miracles are often the longest backup plan.

There are no shortcuts in filmmaking. From an electrical engineering program in Yongkang to the Venice main competition, Wei Te-sheng has used only one method: keep believing, keep walking.

Born in Yongkang, Tainan, in 1969; in 2000, spent NT$500,000 on a five-minute film and couldn't find funding; in 2008, NT$530 million at the box office; in 2011, the Venice main competition—this trajectory is an accumulation of endurance, nothing to do with miracles.

Further reading: Mona Rudao (the historical protagonist behind Seediq Bala, and how the film reshaped his memory) ｜ Wei Te-sheng — Wikipedia ｜ Taiwan Cinema Database: Wei Te-sheng ｜ Golden Horse Awards Official Site

References