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Hang in There, Kids! (2016)
This week ICAF, Chennai (Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation) is hosting a Taiwanese film festival. Today’s second film screened was Hang in There, Kids! (2016) by Laha Mebow. This is a feel-good movie about three young boys growing up in the mountains. The story happens in a farming village of Tayal people, who are indigenous to Taiwan Island. Three boys studying in a community school, spend their evenings in an afterschool run by the local church and go about doing small hunting in the forest nearby to sell their catch to the visiting tourist by taking advantage of their aboriginal looks for quick money. Each of them come from a broken family…
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The Boar King (2014)
The Boar King (2014) is the second Taiwanese film I saw today as part of ICAF organised Taiwanese Film Festival. A typhoon devastates most of a mountain village, where Cho and her husband Ying have been running a small resort inn. The Inn was popular with tourists due to the pool it had, which has running water coming from the hot springs high above the mountain – a place where the folklore says a giant boar (the boar king) lives. Ying has died in the typhoon, their Inn is in disarray, no water in the pool – Cho is unsure of what lies ahead of her. Add to this, Cho…
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Partners in Crime (2014)
This week ICAF is hosting a Taiwanese Film Festival at Russian Centre of Science and Culture, Chennai. The first film I saw today was Partners in Crime (2014) aka Gong fan directed by Jung-chi Chang. It is about the depression and loneliness faced by students in Taiwanese schools, told in an engaging thriller format. One day, “Huang”, a senior school student returning home, notices a young girl “Chia” in a pool of blood, it appears she has fallen from the balcony above. Huang is soon joined by two other boys “Lin” & “Yeh” from the same school. Police arrive soon and handle the rest with the victim’s mother. There is no suspicion on the…
