The Taiwanese New Wave is a whole era of filmmaking that breathed new life into Taiwanese cinema. In the 1980s, young Taiwanese directors were tired of propaganda films, traditional kung fu movies, and romantic melodramas, so they pursued a radical break from old cinema. Inspired by Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave, they created their own films with more realistic plots, sensitive topics, and long, elaborate single-take scenes.
During two distinct periods of the Taiwanese New Wave, the First New Wave (1982–1990) and the Second New Wave (1990–2010), directors like Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, and Ang Lee made history.
Let’s look at the best films of the movement, ranked.
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8 In Our Time
Central Motion Picture Corporation
The 1982 anthology film In Our Time is often credited as launching of the Taiwanese New Wave movement. The film consists of four episodes directed by four talented newcomers, Tao Te-Chen, Edward Yang, Ko I-Chen, and Yi Chang. Each vignette details different stages of life in different decades, unhappy but dreamy childhood in the 1950s, teenage love in the 1960s, vibrant college life in the 1970s, and a newly-married couple life in the 1980s.
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The Harvard Film Archive stated, “taken as a whole, In Our Time announces the ambition of the New Taiwan Cinema: to eschew studio-bound escapism and melodrama in favor of a hard-hitting cinema grounded in everyday life.”
7 The Sandwich Man
Central Motion Pictures
The Sandwich Man is a second anthology for the Taiwanese New Wave. Composed of three separate episodes, the 1983 film by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wan Jen, and Tseng Chuang-hsiang tells stories of ordinary life in Taiwan during the Cold War. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s short about an impoverished man who struggles to find work and decides to create a clown costume to become a walking advertisement steals the show – but other directors’ visions of working-class life are also a must-see.
6 Eat Drink Man Woman
Ang Lee is the main director of the Taiwanese Second New Wave. Before his English-language debut in 1995 and later Hollywood masterpieces, Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012), for which he won two Academy Awards for Best Director, Lee made great Taiwanese movies. The 1994 comedy-drama Eat Drink Man Woman is one of them. Eat Drink Man Woman is the final part of Lee’s Father Knows Best Trilogy that focuses on the generational conflicts. The film tells the warmly engaging story of the strained relations between a widower senior chef and his three grown daughters. It is a window into Taiwanese life.
5 A City of Sadness
Era Communications
The directors of the Taiwanese New Wave wanted to explore their country’s history and talk about sensitive social issues and taboo subjects facing Taiwanese society. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 1989 historical drama A City of Sadness is a perfect example of a movie that examines such topics. The film with legendary Tony Leung in the leading role chronicles a dark period in China’s and Taiwan’s history, the White Terror, the massacre of thousands of Taiwanese by China. A City of Sadness is a film that defines the nation.
4 Growing Up
One of the earliest works in the movement, Kun-hou Chen’s 1983 film Growing Up captures the uneven journey to adulthood. Set in tumultuous times in the north Taiwan coastal town of Tamsui, this comedy-drama follows the rebellious youth of a boy who gets into progressively more trouble. A thoroughly charming coming-of-age tale, Growing Up features topics and techniques that would go on to characterize the Taiwanese New Wave as a whole.
3 A Time to Live and A Time to Die
Central Motion Pictures Corporation
Inspired by the director’s own boyhood, the 1985 film A Time to Live and A Time to Die follows young Ah-ha, whose family left their homeland, China’s mainland, and was unable ever to return. Ah-ha quickly acclimatizes himself to the new home in Taiwan and grows further apart from his traditional family. Filled with deep pain and emotional force, A Time to Live and A Time to Die is a portrait of the loss of childhood, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s most personal film, and a great introduction to the movies of a leading figure of the Taiwanese New Wave.
2 Rebels of the Neon God
Tsai Ming-liang, the modern poet of urban alienation, made his directorial debut with the 1992 drama Rebels of the Neon God, a nakedly desperate story about youthful rebellion. Tsai Ming-liang explores the moods of the bright lights of downtown Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, that links his characters, petty criminal Ah Tze and cram school student Hsiao Kang, who drops out and intends to take revenge.
Like Godard’s first feature Breathless, Rebels of the Neon God synthesizes crime drama and love story. It is an atmospheric masterpiece that should not be missed.
1 A Brighter Summer Day
Cine Qua Non Films
A Brighter Summer Day is arguably the best film to come out of the movement. Directed by Edward Yang, this epic 1991 teen crime drama combines the portrayal of Taiwanese identity and the depiction of the anguish of young people. Yang brings into the light a real murder case that happened in 1961 and tells the story of a conflict between two restlessness youth gangs. The four hours long masterpiece where not a single scene is unnecessary follows Xiao Si’r (Chang Chen), going from a kid from a good home to a juvenile delinquent. Honest and moving, A Brighter Summer Day has taken Taiwanese cinema to new horizons.
