Running Time: 119 mins / Production Year: 2006~2007 / Theatrical Release: Taiwan, 28 Mar 2008 / Screens: 7
This is a rhapsody of Gods, men, and dogs down and out together.
A meandering truck full of gods gets mixed up with a cast of outcasts whose lives gradually entwine with each other. Yellow Bull, the owner of the truck, travels around giving shelter to deserted god statues yet can’t afford to have his artificial leg fixed. Biung, an alcoholic aboriginal, transports top-class peaches between a remote village and Taipei city yet finds himself less valued than even a peach. Ching, a depressed middle class wife, attempts to redeem her marriage after the death of her newborn.
Then there’s a fatal car accident caused by a stray dog. Can it change their lives and put an end to the obvious and distinct boundaries between them?
CREW & CAST
CREW
Executive Producers: YEH JUFENG, SUNNY CHEN
Co-Producers: CHO LI, LOU YI-AN
Scriptwriters: SINGING CHEN, LOU YI-AN
Director of Photography: SHEN KO-SHANG
Gaffer: LEON YUAN
Production Designer: HUANG MEI-CHING
Art Director: LEE TIEN-CHUE
Costume Designer: PAULINA CHIOU
Editors: SINGING CHEN, LIAO CHING-SUNG
Sound: LO SONG-CE, DENNIS Y.F. TSAO
Music: SAKAMOTO HIROMICHI
Special Visual Effects: COOLFRAMES DIGIWORKS CO.
CAST
TARCY SU as Ching
CHANG HAN as A-xiong
JACK KAO as Yellow Bull
JONATHAN CHANG as Xian
ULAU UGAN as Biung
MO GAI as A-mei
TU XIAO-HAN as Savi
CHANG CHUN-MING as Xiao-han
DIRECTOR
SINGING CHEN
Most of her works are stylized direction favoring issues concerning art and culture.
In 2000, her first 16mm feature “BUNDLED” (aka. “WO JIAO A-MING LA”) immediately raised interests leading her to win many awards from domestic, and international film festivals, including Best Drama & Most Promising Director of the Year at Taipei Film Festival and Ecumenical Jury Award & ACAT Human Rights Special Award at Fribourg Film Festival…etc., In 2003, she directed a TV single episode, “THE WEDDING” for Taiwan Public Television Service, which was nominated for 6 Golden Bell Awards.
DIR’S STATEMENT
Human beings set the values of a peach, a dog, human, and even God has a price. In a material world we are living in today, everything leaves to be evaluated. However, every single soul still wanders without finding a harbor before the original burden and ties around them are ripped open. In the film, all the material, spirit spa resort, deity statues, religions can’t help these people to find inner peace. Even to the end, all the social class structure is disrupted as the million dollar antique statue is placed side by side with the rest of the broken statues, and a pure bred dog is wandering along with the stray dogs…Somehow this seems to be the only way to express the slight hope of freedom, and to express the drifting souls of human beings.
Meanwhile, I try to express the uniqueness of Taiwan’s collage culture. Just like the deity statues in the truck that are fitted with neon lights, it’s a glamorous and wild visual imagery; an accidental bizarre offspring of external and internal culture clashes.
AWARDS
*Official selection of the NEW CURRENTS competition at the Busan Int’l Film Festival, 2007.
*Best Editing & Best Art Direction & Best Original Screenplay Nominees at the Golden Horse Awards, 2007.
*Tagesspiegel Readers’ Prize of the INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF NEW CINEMA section at the Berlin Int’l Film Festival, 2008.
*Best Actor Nominee at the Asian Film Awards, 2008.
*E-Changer Award at the Fribourg Int’l Film Festival, 2008.
*Official selection at the Taipei Film Festival, 2008.
TRAILER
