Fire Ball

Three men and an adopted son struggle in Taiwan after escaping China in 1949.

In the 1920's, when Taiwan is Japan's colony, the small town Chiu-Fen was famous of its gold mines. Escaping from the landlord's control, Chu and Wei join the gold rush in Chiu-Fen, hoping that they can be rich and have their own land some day. The are two kinds of women in the small town : hard working housewives and prostitute. The formers are always struggling in poverty. Jou is one of them. People believe that she is doomed to be a widow. She married twice. Both of her husbands are dead. Che falls in love with her anyway.

Taiwan's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1981

"Door Latch" and his friend followed the KMT army and moved to Taiwan in 1949. They conceal their real name and get many trials and afflictions to adapt the circumstances in that special situation. Yueh-Shiang is a classic traditional woman from China country. For requiting the graciousness of being saved by Door Latch, she becomes Door Latch's wife. She suffers hardship to raise and teach their children without any complains. Door Latch wasn't well educated and can hardly read. However, he uses Yueh-Shiang's late husband's name and diploma to get himself a job. Even though there are a lot of embarrassing situations and he suffers many difficulties, Door Latch survives. Door Latch also looks after his old pal Lee Der-Sherng when Lee loses his mind. However, the KMT government released the restriction to visit Mainland China. They are able to visit their parents and relatives there. Their son finds "their" parents, but bigger secrets will unfold.

Taiwanese romance film.

A girl, who was sold by her stepfather at the age of 14, has had been a prostitute for 14 years. Her family, despite enjoying a comfortable life with her help, avoids her. She thus decides to have a son of her own and succeeds by sheer determination. She is now hopeful that her son will have a life better than hers.

During the last years of Japanese occupation in Taiwan, as tenants from the preceding generation, the family of Chan brothers was suffering from poor harvest. With a deaf old mother, a mental disordered sister whose husband was killed in war, and a bunch of children, it was not hard to imagine that they were really poor. One day, a heavy unexploded bomb fell down from the sky on two brothers' farmland. The brothers brought the bomb to the Japanese police as a "gift for the Emperor of Japan". Unfortunately, the Japanese were frightened by the bomb and order them to throw it into the sea. They could do nothing but obeyed the order. The bomb exploded when thrown into the sea. A great number of dead fishes came out of the sea. The two brothers collected the fishes back home. When they saw their exciting family enjoy the fishes, they felt that God is fair.

Kidnapped by a group of bandits and raped by their chief, Dan Zhu slowly develops feelings for the perpetrator. Echoing the social realism of Taiwanese new wave filmmaking, director Wang Tung revisits the wuxia genre, with the emphasis on psychology rather than action.

Zang Guang-xing is a veteran soldier from Mainland China who married a young Taiwanese woman. He has been working as a supervisor in a construction company for seven years. Everyday he rides the same motorbike to work. He suffers enough misery from riding that motorbike, and dreams of buying a car. So he asks around for decent second-hand cars. His son doesn't like any car he chooses. His wife, a typical Taiwanese woman who lives frugally, shaves any penny she can. She is the one who pays for the family's new car. They go out on trips happily, and become the envy of the neighborhood. Zhang thus gets the new car he's always dreamed of, but he starts to worry about it getting dirty, because it's simply too new, too nice for him. The car thus becomes his son's vehicle. He rides the old bike to work again, just like he has during all these years.