月光下，我記得 | The Moon Also Rises

In a coastal village near Taidong during the 1960’s, a single, middle-aged mother, Bao-chai, lives a quiet life with her daughter, Xi-lian, a 20-year old schoolteacher. After conservative Bao-chai finds out that Xi Lian has fallen for her cousin, she forbids them to see each other. As time passes, Xi-lian finds love again, this time with Chu-cheng, a new teacher at her school from mainland China. When Chu-Cheng is relocated, he writes love letters to Xi-lian. Unknown to Xi-lian, the letters are intercepted and read by Bao-chai, who, in reading them, has feelings awakened in her that has been buried for most of her life. Then, one day, Chu-cheng comes to visit, and something happens that will change these three quiet lives forever…

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Kuei-Mei Yang, Yi-nan Shih, Chia-Yu Lin | Presented at Tokyo Film Festival

鲁宾逊漂流记 | Robinson’s Crusoe

The film follows Robinson, a very succesfull real estate broker, who lives in a modern hotel in Taipei. But all the success also hides a lonely man, whose relations are becoming distant, including friends and lovers; Robinson’s dream is the Crusoe, an island on the Caribbean, which he wants to try purchase.

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Leon Dai, Shiang-chyi Chen, Angelica Lee, Kuei-Mei Yang, Phoenix Cheng | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival

爱你爱我 | Betelnut Beauty

In 21st Century Taipei, a restless city where young souls are set adrift, Feng and Fei-fei meet in a sudden summer afternoon thunderstorm. Feng, fresh out of the army, has just made a beeline for Taipei, eager to start a new life. Fei-fei has also recently turned a new page in her young life, having just run away from home. Fei-fei teams up with her friend, Yili, who works at a nightclub. They become “betelnut beauties” hawking their fare from a roadside stall of glass and neon. Betelnut, a legally sold chewing pepper that produces an effect not unlike marijuana, is a favorite among the working class men. Feng and Fei-fei quickly fall in love, two clueless souls clinging desperately to each other as they try to keep up with the punishing rush of city life.

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Chen Chang, Angelica Lee, Leon Dai, Ming-chun Kao, Chen-Nan Tsai | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Jeonju Film Festival, Brisbane Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Flanders Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival

天马茶房 | March of Happiness

1945-1947, Taiwan. A teenage couple were deeply in love despite objections from the girl’s family. Their tragic story is played out in travelling troupes, tea-houses and western-style cafes, with the backdrop of Japanese occupation and the 28 February Incident.

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Giong Lim, Shu-shen Hsiao, Leon Dai, Shufang Chen, Doze Niu | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival

美丽在唱歌 | Murmur of Youth

Two girls both named “Mei Li” who live their own drifting aimleasly life. One day, the creato let them come across and know closely in the ticket booth which marked “No Admittance” Finally, they find the love and enjoy their life experiences each other.

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Rene Liu, Jing Tseng, Chin-Hsin Tsai, Vicky Wei, Chao-jung Chen | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival

放浪 | Sweet Degeneration

With a singular voice that distinguishes him from his New Taiwan Cinema contemporaries, Lin Cheng-sheng adds to his brief, but already remarkable, filmography with Sweet Degeneration, his third film in two years. As with A Drifting Life and Murmur of Youth, Lin’s new film delicately unfolds, gradually building to a climax of stunning emotional reverberations. Drawn from a particularly painful episode in the director’s past, Sweet Degeneration delves into the uneasy bonds a brother and sister have with each other and the people around them. Upon his return home from his mandatory military service, Chun-shen steals money from his embittered father and sets out for Taipei with half-hearted hopes of finding a job playing the sax. Instead of pursuing his music career, the perpetually apathetic Chun-shen finds it easier to squander his money on cheap hotel rooms and prostitutes. Meanwhile, back home, his sister Ju-feng, who is going through a painful separation from her husband, pines for her brother. She is determined to bring him back into the family fold, whether he wants to come or not.

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Jing Tseng, Leon Dai, Shiang-chyi Chen, Shih-huang Chen | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival

太平。天國 | Buddha Bless America

In a sleepy part of rural Taiwan in the late 1960s, the life of a village is shattered when Uncle Sam arrives in tanks. The Yanks are there to take part in joint military exercises with Taiwanese troops, but the villagers take their compensation by direct methods – they steal anything that can be moved. One of the film’s great strengths is the way that writer Wu Nien-jen, in only his second feature as director, shades the comic tone. The film’s main character, Brain (Lin Cheng-sheng, himself a director), condemns the rampant theft but turns against the Americans when they take him for a beggar. He steals two huge boxes, not knowing what they contain.

Directed by Nien-Jen Wu | Starring : Cheng-sheng Lin, Chuan-Chen Yeh, Chung-Hsien Yang, Bin-hui Lee, Yung-Teh Hsu | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival

春花梦露 | A Drifting Life

After his wife dies during childbirth, Ku-cheng leaves his children behind in their rural village while he finds work on a construction site in the city. He develops a relationship with a widow but despite their intimacy, he refuses to remarry. Lin’s moving, mutli-generational debut feature is anchored by a strong performance from Tsai Ming-liang alter ego Lee Kang-sheng.

Directed by Cheng-sheng Lin | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Jing Tseng, Vicky Wei, Shufang Chen, Yu-Wen Wang | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival