Running Time: 85 mins / Production Year: 2008~2009 / Theatrical Release: Taiwan, 4 Dec 2009 / Screens: 3
Kicki is a lonely 50 year-old woman, working at a truck stop restaurant along a highway in Sweden. The only significant person in her life is her son Viktor (16), whom she doesn’t have a good relationship with. Viktor, who grew up with his grandmother, chooses to give his mother one last chance when she invites him on a trip to Taiwan. But Kicki hasn’t told Viktor about her real reason for the trip: looking up her secret crush, the businessman Mr. Chang. This man, whom Kicki has met via an Internet chat, turns out to be married and Kicki’s world falls apart.
There, on the other side of the globe, Kicki realizes that she has let her son down because of a romantic whim.
Is it too late to win back Viktor’s love before he disappears, with his own secrets, into Taipei, a bustling city of millions?
“Miss Kicki” is a story about the yearning to mean something to someone else.
CREW & CAST
CREW
Executive Producers: ANITA OXBURGH, YEH JUFENG
Producers: LIZETTE JONJIC, CHO LI
Scriptwriter: ALEX HARIDI
Director of Photography: ARI WILLEY
Gaffers: CHEN KUAN-TING, DAN SANDQVIST
Production Designers: TSAI PEI-LING, ELLEN OSENG
Costume Designer: SUN HUI-MEI
Editor: FREDRIK MORHEDEN
Sound: TANG SHIANG-CHU, TU DUU-CHIH
Music: FREDRIK VIKLUND
CAST
PERNILLA AUGUST as Kicki
LUDWIG PALMELL as Viktor
HUANG HE RIVER as Didi
ERIC TSANG as Mr. Chang
TSAI CHEN-NAN as the Police
KEN LIN as the Receptionist
YAO KUN-CHUN as Mrs. Chang
BRITTA ANDERSSON as Grandmother
DIRECTOR
HAKON LIU
Born in 1975, in Kirkenes, Norway and grew up in Taiwan. Hakon graduated from The School of Film Direction at The University of Gothenburg in 2005. Before that he studied fine arts at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Hakon is also a permanent guest teacher of film acting at the Academy of Music and Drama and the School of Film Direction at the University of Gothenburg.
DIR’S STATEMENT
I like romantic dramas that take place where the characters are not at home. The feeling of being anyone in a foreign country, or strange place, where nobody knows you. Two examples are “Happy Together” (Wong Kar Wai) and “Lost in Translation” (Sofia Coppola). The inner journey of the character is reflected in the surroundings. But in my story, as opposed to these dramas, the infatuation gets an unexpected twist.
The film should juxtapose atmosphere with raw expression, like a mix between poetic Asian film and Swedish realism. For me, this mixture is a natural part of myself. As half-Chinese, raised in Taiwan, I am longing to tell a Swedish story from another perspective. I envision Kicki and Viktor’s hearts being broken during a Chinese New Year’s dinner. I see them walking through a neon-lit city, see comic meetings and misunderstandings, and the beautiful hazy sunshine filling the frame as mother and son finally meet again.
AWARDS
*Special Mention Award of the FLASH FORWARD competition at the Busan Int’l Film Festival, 2009.
*Rainer-Werner-Fassbinder Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg Int’l Film Festival, 2009.
*Telia Film Award at the Stockholm Int’l Film Festival, 2009.
TRAILER
