"When I visited CCU last spring and talked to a lot of students there, I discovered some interesting insights about Taiwan society," Yang said.
"Of course, for young people anywhere, in any country, trying to make their dreams come true is never easy, but it's part of the process of growing up, maturing. We all go through it at that age. So even though the adult society around us may sometimes seem hypocritical or fake, when we are young, as the characters in the movie are, we live lives of innocence and strong emotions."
Yang said later editions of the film will have English subtitles, and a DVD will be released early next year also with English subtitles.
Yang and his producers plan to screen My Fair Laddy at the next Berlin Film Festival in Germany, and they also hope to get invitations later to film festivals in Japan, Canada, New York and Italy.
"Right now, our marketing efforts here in Taiwan are to screen the movie on college campuses nationwide this month and next, kind of like a university roadshow," associate producer Cheng said.
My Fair Laddy was financed in the usual Taiwan way, according to Yang, with a third of the funding coming from local and international investors, and the rest from a bank loan. One of the international investors, Yang said, is a French national, a director of a major multinational clothing company based in Asia who was once Yang's French teacher in Taipei when the director was a college student some 20 years ago.
Yang says he has three big hopes for his new movie. " I hope we can help bring audiences in Taiwan back to the movie theaters; I hope our investors can make some money, of course; and I hope filmgoers in Taiwan and overseas will really enjoy the story and the acting in the film."
Yang says he hopes My Fair Laddy will reach beyond Taiwan's shores and resonate overseas,too.
"I hope that not only Taiwanese students, but also students all around the world will identify with this movie's theme," he says. "If people have dreams, and most college students around the world today do, then they will be able to enjoy this movie. It's for them, after all!"
"Can Youth Save Taiwan Cinema?" asked the International Herald Tribune newspaper last year, in a headline above an article by Taipei-based reporter Caroline Gluck. "A new generation of Taiwanese filmmakers and producers is beginning to make waves," Gluck wrote, noting that Alex Yang was one of them.
My Fair Laddy might just be the film that brings Yang to the attention of a larger international audience and make his name a household word here in Taiwan.
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