2003 wasn’t a good year for Taiwanese movies. Only ten
locally-produced films were released, and they all took less
than NT 2,000,000 at the box office. By contrast, Lord of
the Rings: The Return of the King took in over NT
200,000,000, almost a hundred times more. Are audiences
simply taking a break from Taiwanese movies? Or
have they deserted local films for good?
Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye Dragon Inn was the most popular
Taiwanese movie, grossing NT 1,700,000. The film uses
an old cinema that’s closing down to symbolise the passing
of the glory days of Taiwanese cinema. Lee Kangsheng,
Tsai’s regular actor, made his directorial debut with
The Missing, which told of a grandmother searching for her
grandson. Chu Yu-ning’s My Whispering Plan and Wang
Ming-tai’s Brave 20 both talk about the passing of youth,
and have a girl dying in each. The 2D animation Butterfly
Lovers was about the impossibility of love in this world.
All these filmmakers have a connection with Tsai Mingliang.
Wang Ming-tai (37 years old) and Yu Ning-chu (34
years old) used to be Tsai’s assistant directors, while, as
mentioned, Lee Kang-sheng (36 years old) is his leading
actor. Directors from this age group seem to be obsessed
with themes of personal repression, a result of the era of
martial law in which they grew up. Maybe that’s the reason
their works seems so serious.
SARS and piracy meant that box office takings dropped
20%-30%. But that didn’t mean much to the Taiwanese
movies, since they are usually released on between one
and four screens. They aren’t released at peak holiday
times, either, so don’t really have to compete with big
Hollywood movies. Most Taiwanese filmmakers aren’t that
concerned with box office, anyway. Taiwanese movies are
budgeted at NT$ 20 million, NT$5 to NT$ 10 million of
which is provided by grants. These grants, plus the prize
money the government gives for participating in international
film festivals, has sponsored filmmaking in Taiwan for
years. So profit isn’t really a consideration that filmmakers
have to worry about.
But recently, the Government Information Office has come
up with new policies to encourage filmmakers to do well at
the box office. The movie that does the best at the box
office will be awarded NT 3,000,000, the second NT
2,000,000, and so on. How embarrassing it will be if the
box office is less than the prize money! Filmmakers in
Taiwan seem to be like an ethnic minority which needs to
be taken care of. Thankfully, it’s been like this for so long
that tax-payers don’t mind. A more troubling issue is that
filmmakers have a problem with self-identity. Last year, the
Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs won most of the important
prizes at the Golden Horse Awards. Beaten on home
ground, filmmakers from Taiwan wallowed in rejection.
Though box office earnings are disappointing, Taiwanese
filmmakers haven’t given up. They believe that audiences
will come back, and they seize every opportunity to re-educate
and create an audience for Taiwanese movies. Films
are able to show and preserve Taiwanese culture, after all.
Tsai Ming-liang made many speeches in schools, and Chu
Yu-ning has held eighty symposiums to publicise Taiwanese
movies.
Nobody says filmmaking is a piece of cake, and things are
getting even more difficult now than ever. Filmmaking in
Taiwan has almost become a cottage industry. But with
some courage and creativity, we can create both a new
audience for Taiwanese movies and a brighter summers’
day for the film industry as a whole.
Note: 100 NT = US$3 at press time.
Elsa Yang