When U-Theater meets the cinema

Director Kenneth Bi (畢國智) saw Taiwan's U-Theater (優人神鼓) performing Sound of the Ocean (聽海之音) in Hong Kong in 2000, and was stricken with the profound power of the group's drumming. He began envisioning a film about the reclusive performance troupe. Countless visits to the theater and nearly five years of preparation after, shooting began for the project - a collaboration between filmmakers and actors in Hong Kong, Germany and Taiwan. The end result is a mixture of family drama and Zen Buddhism.

The story follows Sid (played by Jaycee Chan, 房祖名), a reckless young rock drummer raised in a Hong Kong family tied to a triad gang. Infuriating a mob boss who vows to revenge the humiliation inflicted upon him, Sid is sent to Taiwan by his father Kwan (played by Tony Leung Ka-fai 梁家輝) to hide out.

Bored with his dull life in the countryside, the young man is drawn by the sound of drumming from the mountain and discovers a group drummers who live in seclusion, practicing Zen Buddhism.

After joining the group, Sid changes. He comes to realize that drumming is not merely about playing a musical instrument, but a way of meditation, a rigorous training for body and soul.

Meanwhile, Kwan is betrayed by other ring members and murdered in jail. The turn of fate forces Sid to choose between revenge for his father and his newly-found self.

Visually speaking, the film portrays its two main locations differently. The hand-held camera gives Hong Kong a fast-pacing, chaotic look. Tinted with dense, shadowy colors, it paints a world of triad-related violence and betrayal. The mountain range in Taiwan, on the other hand, is represented as a spiritual retreat where birds chirp in the lush woods. As the first third of the film, reminiscent of Hong Kong gangster flicks, gives way to the spiritual practice of U-Theater, the narration takes a documentary-like turn to detail the daily routine of physical training, meditation and drumming. In so doing, the tension between the dramatic flow and the exposition on U-Theater is awkwardly felt at times. Adding to this, director Liu Ruo-yu (劉若瑀), drum master Huang Chih-Chun (黃誌群) and troupe members all star as themselves.

Bi manages to bring together different dramatic themes - self-exploration, religion, family relationships and the art of drumming - into a coherent narration, yet the straightforward storytelling fails to fully engage the audience in the minds of the characters.

The son of Jackie Chan (成龍), 23-year-old Jaycee Chan turns in a passable performance as a youth learning to master his turbulent soul while award-winning actress Angelica Lee is confined in a flat role of the young drummer Sid secretly admires.

To U-Theater, known for their austere way of life as much as their drumming, the project is a daring experiment with the commercial world. "Director Bi followed each and every performance of U-Theater [during the five years of preparation]," Liu said. "He made documentaries about us and interviewed the troupe members … . We agreed to participate as we were moved by his sincerity and passion for the project."

The troupe trusts the director because it feels he understands their philosophy, and has embodied their lifestyle accurately in the film, allowing the members to star as themselves without interference.

"Some of our performers doubted whether the film could depict U-Theater in a proper way. But after attending the first screening, we feel that the film conveyed the power of our art … I think that the film is not about casting the U-Theater as actors, but about how a youth is changed and inspired by U-Theater," Liu said.