Director Chang Tso-chi’s (張作驥) cinematic world is usually populated by social underdogs, gangsters and men trapped in vicious cycles of violence. But in When Love Comes (當愛來的時候), his newest film, females take center stage in a tale that follows the road to reconciliation and understanding that the members of an extended family travel down.
Chang’s latest drama begins with 16-year-old Laichun (Li Yi-chieh, 李亦捷) walking through a bustling eatery in a traditional market. We quickly learn it’s a family business and the voice and thoughts of the teenage girl transport us into her hectic family life.
Her father, Dark Face (Lin Yu-shun, 林郁順), comes from a poor family in Kinmen and married Xue Feng (Lu Xue-feng, 呂雪鳳), whose wealthy family lacks a male heir. Xue Feng is infertile and allows Dark Face to keep his childhood lover Zhihua (He Zi-hua, 何子華), who bears him two daughters (Laichun and Lairi) and a boy, as a concubine. They all live together under one roof, but home life is far from easygoing.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings
Jie, Dark Face’s autistic younger brother, moves in with the family, causing yet more squabbles. Domestic quarrels soon turn into a full-blown crisis when Laichun becomes pregnant and her boyfriend disappears.
The family’s females- — its powerful matriarch, dutiful mistress and teenager struggling to come to terms with the abrupt end to her adolescence — dominate the house. Dark Face is meek but thoughtful, a henpecked figure dissimilar to any of the father characters in Chang’s previous works, which include drunks, gamblers and irresponsible men who abandon their families.
Chang’s trademark fatalism mellows when toward the end of the film tragedy strikes and the women band together, offering each other solace.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings
The director imbues his characters with warmth and humor and constructs an authentic family setting that could easily have veered off into the melodramatic in less talented hands.
Known for his cold treatment of the world in films like The Best of Times (美麗時光, 2002) and Soul of a Demon (蝴蝶, 2008), and giving his desperate protagonists magical moments that allow them to temporarily escape the cruelty of their lives, with When Love Comes the director seems to have broken many of his filmmaking habits.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings
DIRECTED BY: Chang Tso-chi (張作驥)
STARRING: Li Yi-CHIEH (李亦捷) as Laichun, Lu Xue-feng (呂雪鳳) as Xue Feng, Lin Yu-shun (林郁順) as Dark Face, He Zi-hua (何子華) as Zhihua, Kao Meng-jie (高盟傑) as Jie
Language: Mandarin and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese)with Chinese and English subtitles
RUNNING TIME: 106 MINUTES
TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY
Afghan youth rights activist Wazhma Sayle says she was shocked to see a photograph online, apparently of women dressed in black all-enveloping niqabs and gowns, staging a demonstration in support of the country’s new Taliban rulers at Kabul University. The 36-year-old, who is based in Sweden, later posted a photograph of herself on Twitter dressed in a bright green and silver dress captioned: “This is Afghan culture & how we dress! Anything less then this does not represent Afghan women!” “It’s a fight for our identity,” Sayle said in a telephone interview. “I don’t want to be identified the way Taliban showed
In an industrial unit on the outskirts of Taipei chefs are plating meals that will never be served in a restaurant: welcome to the world of “ghost kitchens.” Even before the pandemic sent an earthquake through the global restaurant trade, the “Amazonification” of commercial kitchens was well underway, but coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions have fueled explosive growth in Asia. The recent boom in food delivery apps meant customers were already used to having restaurant quality meals quickly delivered to their homes. To meet that demand a growing number of restaurants set up delivery only kitchens — also known as “cloud kitchens”
Late last week the commentariat was stirred by a TVBS poll published on Thursday showing that pro-China dinosaur, college professor and fringe presidential contender Chang Ya-chung (張亞中) was leading establishment dinosaur Eric Chu (朱立倫) 30.6 percent to 27.5 percent in a poll of Chinese National Party (KMT) members. Current KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), considered “youthful” at nearly 50, trailed with a dismal 12.8 percent. TVBS is generally regarded as pro-KMT and so would have little reason to diddle the numbers, which show that Chu, the fair-haired boy of the party’s elites, has been in a slide since the beginning of
Sept. 20 to Sept. 26 During Liang Chiu-jung’s (梁秋蓉) bitter three-year legal battle with her ex-husband’s family, her younger son was the only thing that kept her going. But in 1993, her husband’s family, who was caring for their older son, suddenly requested custody. Although the 1990s, article 1089 of the Civil Code still stipulated that in the event that both parents disagreed how to exercise parental rights over a minor, the father had the right of final decision. There was also Article 1051, which by default granted custody to the father in case of a divorce. After losing the first trial,
RSS