On a recent weekend afternoon, a 22-year-old philosophy student considered the merits of Three Times (最好的時光), a bittersweet romance that heads the list of competitors at today's Golden Horse Awards.
"[It is] beautiful to look at and poetic, but too slow for most of my classmates," said Laura Wang, lamenting her contemporaries' growing preference for US-made romantic comedies and action thrillers.
Wang's observation reflects the fundamental dilemma facing Taiwan's film industry, which won world acclaim in the 1980s for its realistic portrayal of local life, but has since been undermined by fading viewer appeal and growing columns of red ink.
PHOTO: AFP
Over the past decade, annual movie production has stalled at around a dozen titles, and the box office market share for local films remains a minuscule 2 percent.
Producer Patrick Mao Huang (黃茂昌), a veteran observer of the local movie scene, says the dilemma comes down to either a gamble on the subtle arthouse movies that win awards at international festivals but frequently crash at the box office, or opting for the commercially surer, but less fulfilling, action and comedy fare that Hollywood and Hong Kong excel at.
He says that the huge success of Ang Lee's (李安) martial-arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍) four years ago taught local industry leaders that what works best is a Hollywood or Hong Kong-style movie with a foreign cast that will widen its appeal beyond Taiwan's prohibitively tiny market of 23 million people.
"Taiwan is too small, so local movies need some international flavor," he said, noting that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon featured actors from Hong Kong, China and the US, as well as Taiwan itself.
Film critic Carrie Tu agrees, but warns against taking internationalizing too far.
"We need excitement to bring the crowds back, but even commercial films need to keep an original viewpoint and a Taiwanese flavor," she said.
For youthful director Wu Mi-sen (吳米森), Huang's championing of the commercial approach makes a certain amount of sense, but only if arthouse films still survive.
Some people say "Taiwanese cinema is too personal, but many personal views can also lead to good movies," he said.
Taiwan's failure to sustain a lively movie industry has been cast into especially sharp relief by this year's Golden Horse Awards, which will bring ethnic Chinese stars from Hong Kong, China, Japan and the US under a single Taiwanese roof.
The event has been held since the 1960s, but the strongest contenders for major awards traditionally hail from Hong Kong, the nerve center of East Asia's entertainment world.
The top nominees this year are two Hong Kong action movies: Election (黑社會), which is up for 11 awards; and Kung Fu Hustle (功夫), nominated for 10 awards.
But in a potentially hopeful sign for the local industry, Three Times is also stealing the limelight, it is competing in nine categories, including best picture and best director.
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