Director Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) was 25 when he stepped into the movie business wanting to tell good stories. For the following 14 years, he worked with masters such as Edward Yang (楊德昌) and Chen Kuo-fu (陳國富), and is best known as the wild man who took NT$2.5 million out of his own pocket to make a five-minute demo in a bid to attract investors for his yet-to-materialize epic about the Seediq Aborigines and their anti-Japanese revolt in 1930.
Wei has put himself further into debt, this time to the tune of NT$30 million, to make Cape No. 7 (海角七號), his feature film debut. If nothing else, it is likely to establish him as a more than competent storyteller and maker of warmhearted movies.
The story goes something like this: 60 years ago, a Japanese teacher was forced to leave his Taiwanese lover in the town of Hengchun (恆春) when the repatriation of Japanese nationals began following the end of Word War II. Back at home he wrote a letter each day to the lover he would never see again.
Sixty years on, a young man named Aga (Van Fan) returns home to Hengchun after his dream of becoming a rock musician in Taipei falls flat. Reluctantly, Aga takes up a job as a substitute for Uncle Mao (Lin Tsung-ren) after the old postman breaks his leg.
Equally reluctantly, Tomoko (Tanaka Chie) from Japan is asked to stay in Hengchun to supervise a warm-up act scraped together at the last minute for an upcoming concert by Japanese superstar Kousuke Atari. The newly enlisted band members seem, however, less than promising: the reckless Aga, hot-tempered Aboriginal policeman Laoma (Min-Hsiung), auto mechanic Frog (Clipper Xiao Ying) who has a thing for his big-breasted lady boss, elementary school student Dada (Mai Tzu), and Uncle Mao, a yueqin (月琴) master.
With the concert just three days away, Uncle Mao is still having a hard time figuring out how to pluck his bass. Aga has yet to write something for the band to play. In fact, the band looks verge of breaking up even before its first gig. There is also the parcel of letters, posted 60 years ago, which Aga is not able to deliver, as the mailing address no longer exists. Amid all of this, a romance begins to bud between Aga and Tomoko.
Though the narration feels forced and stretched at times, Wei does a commendable job weaving together stories of characters from different generations and diverse ethnic and social backgrounds. He has a fine command of the vernacular and the troupe of musicians, including pop singer Van Fan, Aboriginal crooner Min-Hsiung, indie musicians Clipper Xiao Ying and Ma Nien-hsien, and real-life beiguan (北管) wizard Lin Tsung-ren, share an explosive onscreen chemistry. The weakest link is the romance between Aga and Tomoko. Although Van Fan is reasonably charming as the reticent, bitter teenager Aga, Tanaka Chie is excessively irritated and grouchy, so that even a night of intimacy fails to make the pair into plausible lovebirds.
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