Vicky Wei
Women struggle in a Shanghai brothel where everything only appears to be beautiful.
A rather dejected Mei-li Chen lives with her extended family in the suburbs. She drops out of college when the boy she has a crush on finds a girlfriend. Mei-li eventually ends up selling tickets in a movie theatre. A great camaraderie then builds up between the two cashiers in the small ticket booth.
Gao (Jack Kao) is riding the train to Pinghsi to set up a 10 day gambling den with his friend Hsi (Hsi Hsiang).
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.
In Taiwan, a young woman, Lin-Lang, is released from prison after serving ten years for terrorist activity. She had turned to bomb making in grief after her mentor and lover, An Rong, who was also her university professor, was arrested for political activity and, she presumed, executed. In prison, she learns Rong is alive, and she maintains her spirits and sanity for the years in her cell by holding imaginary conversations with him. When she is released, she discovers he is married, has a child, and lives conventionally. She finds him; he's not happy to see her. How she reacts to losing the center of her life becomes the subject of the film.
A-kuo and A-tou are teen-aged boys living in an industrial town in Taiwan. When they are not in school, they generally hang out with their buddy Hsiao Kao, a very stylish and charismatic younger gangster who enjoys their company and support. When one of Hsia Kao's gangland patrons is gunned down, the trio set out to revenge the killing. As a result, the two teens are forced into hiding. One boy tells his dad he wants to go to America, which nearly kills the old man. The other just lays low. When things cool down a bit, they head on up to Taipei, looking for their gangster friend and sampling the gritty pleasures of the capital city's underworld and nightlife. - Clarke Fountain, Rovi
