From 1955 to 1981, some 1,200 films, known in Mandarin as Taiyupian, were produced in Taiwanese—the first language of the country’s majority. Though wildly popular at first, Taiyupian received little of the official support given to films in Mandarin, the so-called “national language” imposed by the former martial-law regime, and were later dismissed as cheap, tacky, and faintly embarrassing. But after decades of neglect, ongoing preservation of the 200-odd surviving Taiyupian has uncovered a pop cinema of tremendous vitality and imagination—not to mention an often startling frankness—that rewrites the history of Taiwanese film. The AFS teams up with the Austin Asian American Film Festival to present four recently-restored Taiyupian
This screening made possible by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute and the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston.
