Chang Tso-chi’s (張作驥) new film Thanatos, Drunk (醉‧生夢死) feels like a lethal projectile striking at the core of humanity. After covering subjects such as maternal warmth and reconciliation in When Love Comes (當愛來的時候) and childhood innocence in A Time in Quchi (暑假作業), the auteur returns to his familiar world inhabited by social underdogs, gangsters and prostitutes — a vision that is much fiercer and more emotionally poignant than before.
The drama revolves around a smothering, alcoholic mother and two brothers, one straight, one gay. In the prologue, Rat, played by newcomer Lee Hong-chi (李鴻其), dances with his drunk mother (Lu Hsueh-feng, 呂雪鳳) in their dingy home beside the Tamsui River (淡水河). In an inebriated haze, the mother laments her lot as a discarded wife. She nags Rat to get a job and worries about her older son, Shang-ho (Huang Shang-ho, 黃尚禾), who has just returned from living in the US.
As in Chang Tso-chi’s previous works, our protagonist, Rat, is trapped in a vicious cycle of despair and violence. We follow the tormented tough closely as he wanders through narrow back alleys, hawks vegetables at a wet market and hangs out with Shuo (Cheng Jen-shuo, 鄭人碩), a gigolo whom he idolizes and with whom he shares a flat.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings Films
Shang-ho works by day at a film company in Ximending (西門町) and parties at gay clubs by night. It soon becomes apparent that Shang-ho and Shuo are attracted to each other.
Meanwhile, Rat falls in love with a mute hooker (Chang Ning, 張甯), and violently attacks her johns. Soon the past catches up with the volatile punk and his gigolo friend, who are forced to settle an old score.
In Thanatos, Drunk, the narrative is not linear. Past and present are juxtaposed, merged and interwoven. In one scene, Shuo and other gigolos entertain clients; in another he sleeps with his girlfriend (Wang Ching–ting, 王靖婷), Rat’s cousin, in their cramped room by the bleak river. There are no flashbacks, and only through repetitive, similar sequences do we pick up clues here and there that give an idea of what has been happening.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings Films
This temporal removal helps to create a sense of immediacy as the characters wander through the mundane landscape of their lives, from being alone on the rooftop gazing off into the skyline to drunken ramblings over empty bottles in a claustrophobic room.
But this deceptively realistic surface reveals internal struggles underneath. Emotional entanglements erupt and implode through casual conversations, daily routines and habitual reactions.
And that is the genius of Chang Tso-chi, who makes it all seem so spontaneous and effortless.
The film works because the director has assembled actors who deliver authentic performances. In particular, first-time actor Lee looks both vulnerable and cruel as an angry young man wracked with guilt.
Critics have argued that the alcoholic mother, played by Lu Hsueh-feng, is the soul of the film. Lu summons emotional strength and sincerity to lift her role from a sobbing, alcoholic wreck to a maternal force too potent and restless that it ends up suffocating and consuming her own children.
Chang Tso-chi is known for using animal metaphors. Rat’s weird fixation on his pet ants, maggots and a half-dead pomfret presents a microcosm of the director Chang’s cinematic world, sordid and violent, while dotted with rare moments of lucidity.
Thanatos, Drunk is, without a doubt, one of Chang Tso-chi’s best and most despairing works to date. It is curious to note that the film was made during a very troubling time for the director, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a female screenwriter at his studio in Taipei in 2013. Three months after Chang Tso-chi began his nearly four-year prison sentence, the film won several prizes at this year’s Taipei Film Festival (台北電影節), including the Grand Prize and Best Narrative Feature award.
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
RSS