In 2024, the Taiwanese film market saw a decline of approximately 17% compared to the previous year. Domestic film box office revenue fell significantly from NT$1.22 billion to around NT$700 million, marking a staggering decrease of 40% [NT$1 = €0,03]. Additionally, market share dropped from 15.7% to 10%. Facing strong competition from Hollywood films and Japanese anime, Taiwanese movies struggled to recover. Only five films exceeded NT$30 million at the box office during the year, while the majority earned less than NT$20 million. Even horror films, which previously had a stable audience, failed to perform, and the only film to shine in the whole year was the hit sequel Gatao: Like Father Like Son. Despite these challenges, Taiwanese filmmakers continued to explore new genres and themes, embracing more diverse perspectives through international co-productions.
At the start of the 2024 Lunar New Year season, Taiwanese films began to show signs of struggle. First of all, Wang Ding-Lin’s action-comedy Breaking and Re-entering incorporates parodies of heist movies like Entrapment and The Invisible Guest series as comedic elements. Instead of following the typical narrative of bank robberies, the film featured a group of protagonists, including Chen Bolin, Wu Kang-ren, Frederick Lee, and Kent Tsai, who collaborated to return money that had been stolen from a bank. However, the audience did not fully embrace the clever design and overall presentation of Breaking and Re-entering, resulting in a lackluster box office performance of NT$41.6 million. Another Taiwanese film released during the Lunar New Year, Kids, faced difficulties as well. Despite being produced by the well-known Taiwanese comedy director Chu Yen-Ping and attempting to update Chu’s successful kung fu comedy formula by incorporating virtual world elements, the film only managed to generate NT$3.37 million at the box office.
The Taiwan-Japan co-production 18x2 Beyond Youthful Days, adapted from Blue Fox’s 2014 online travelogue, was executive produced by Chang Chen and directed by Fujii Michihito. Starring Taiwanese actor Greg Hsu and Japanese actress Kiyohara Kaya, the film follows a Taiwanese game company founder who, facing career setbacks, decides to travel to Japan to seek solace and visit the hometown of his first love.
18x2 Beyond Youthful Days highlights the human experience and stunning landscapes of Taiwan and Japan, focusing on themes of youthful romance and nostalgic memories. While its domestic box office earnings of NT$75.78 million were not as impressive as anticipated – ranking third among Taiwanese films for the year – the combined star power of the creative team and lead actor Greg Hsu greatly boosted its release in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and other regions.
The film attracted over 2.8 million viewers across Asia, generating a total box office revenue exceeding NT$545 million. This success illustrates the ambition of Taiwanese films to enhance their international presence. In recent years, the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) has prioritized international co-productions to achieve this goal.
Over the past three years, TAICCA has supported around 40 international co-production projects featuring Taiwanese elements. Many of these projects have been showcased at prestigious international film festivals, including Berlin, Cannes, and Tokyo. For instance, Lust in the Rain, nominated for the competition section of the Venice Film Festival, are both films invested in by TAICCA, directed by Japanese and Singaporean filmmakers, respectively.
Lust in the Rain is the first film shot in Taiwan by Katayama Shinzo, the talented Japanese director known for Siblings of the Cape. This film is adapted from the unconventional short stories of Tsuge Yoshiharu, a pioneer of avant-garde adult manga in Japan. Featuring a cast that includes Narita Ryo, Morita Go and Nakamura Eriko, it explores the erotic relationships and dreamlike entanglements among a manga artist, a widow, and another man. The entire behind-the-scenes team is from Japan, and the movie is set in Chiayi, Taiwan, which boasts a nostalgic atmosphere reminiscent of the 1980s. This setting contributes to the film’s unique Taiwanese-Japanese hybrid feel.
Stranger Eyes is the latest film by director Yeo Siew Hua, who previously won the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival for A Land Imagined. A co-production involving Taiwan, Singapore, the United States, and France, Stranger Eyes also served as the opening feature at last year’s Golden Horse Film Festival. Set in Singapore, the film stars a main cast of Taiwanese actors, including Wu Chien-ho, Lee Kang-sheng, and Vera Chen. The story follows a young couple, whose daughter has been kidnapped, that begins to receive unsettling videos of themselves taken by an unknown voyeur. Through the experiences of two families on the brink of collapse, the film delves into themes of voyeurism, surveillance, and indifference in modern urban life.
Dead Talents Society, the latest work by John Hsu which won five Golden Horse Awards, comes five years after his Detention. This new film tells the story of a group of ghosts trying to succeed in the afterworld’s entertainment industry in order to avoid disappearing due to a loss of presence. Unlike the serious historical themes explored in Detention, this film embraces Hsu’s signature style of satirical comedy, reminiscent of his earlier short films. Its unique and humorous concept caught the attention of Sony Pictures Entertainment, marking it as their first investment in a Chinese-language film in twenty years. Sony has also acquired global distribution and remake rights for the film.
Dead Talents Society featuring performances by Chen Bolin, Sandrine Pinna, Gingle Wang, and others, delves into the modern anxieties surrounding achievement through an entertaining survival battle set in the underworld. While the technical department delivered a strong performance, the film’s dark humor did not resonate with Taiwanese audiences, which hindered its word-of-mouth success. Despite a domestic box office of NT$60 million being only moderately successful, the film received widespread acclaim at international film festivals. It won the runner-up audience award in the Midnight Madness section at the Toronto International Film Festival, as well as the Sitges Selection audience award and the Focus Asia audience award at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain, among other honors.
Last summer marked the peak period for Taiwanese film performance. In addition to Dead Talents Society, both The Chronicles of Libidoists and I Am the Secret in Your Heart also ranked among the top ten box office hits of the year. Furthermore, Gatao: Like Father Like Son set a new box office record for the Gatao series, earning NT$224 million.
The Chronicles of Libidoists is Yang Ya-che’s new work, released seven years after The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful. This movie explores complex and multi-faceted erotic relationships among its four lead characters, pushing the boundaries of sexual depiction in Taiwanese cinema. Nevertheless, despite generating considerable buzz, it ultimately fell short at the box office. In contrast, the pure romance film I Am the Secret in Your Heart, directed by Lai Meng-Chieh and based on a best-selling novel, resonated with student audiences. Featuring a fresh love triangle involving actors Moon Lee, Tsao Yu-ning, and Lou Jun-shuo, it demonstrated the market appeal of campus romance films.
Released as the film series marked its 10th anniversary, Gatao: Like Father Like Son serves as a prequel to the collection, delving into the origins and worldview of the Gatao universe. The story begins with the reason why Sunny Wang, the male lead from the first installment, incurred the wrath of various gangs. It also introduces the unexpectedly disruptive Tugou Gang, sparking a struggle for territory and a life-or-death battle.
Under the leadership of producer Red Chang, the Gatao series keeps bringing together actors from various generations, including Tsai Chen-Nan, Jack Kao, Shih Ming-Shuai, Harry Chang, and others. The series effectively captures the emotional intensity, brutal threats, and code of honor typically found in gangster films, creating a dramatic tension that has made it the longest-running and most commercially valuable intellectual property in Taiwanese cinema. Thanks to the long-term involvement of the production team, including director Ray Jiang and cinematographer Yao Hung-I, the quality of the films is consistently maintained. Each of the four installments has exceeded the box office success of its predecessor, and a television adaptation has also completed filming. Additionally, the franchise has expanded its influence by launching concerts, merchandise, and plans for game adaptations.
While films based on intellectual property manage to attract a stable fanbase, original stories provide fresh creative opportunities. Daughter’s Daughter and The Uniform, both centering on female protagonists, are precisely based on original screenplays. The former explores the journey of a woman in her sixties as she reevaluates her life choices, while the latter follows a high school girl who seeks self-affirmation after experiencing confusion and a sense of escaping reality.
Daughter’s Daughter is Huang Xi’s second film, following Missing Johnny. The film took six years to complete and was selected for the competition section of the Tokyo Film Festival. Executive produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien and Sylvia Chang, the movie features Sylvia Chang as the lead actress and central figure. She played a crucial role in the film’s production, offering suggestions and insights while bringing depth to her character through her steady and restrained performance. Additionally, she received an honorable mention award in the Platform section of the Toronto International Film Festival.
In the film, Sylvia Chang portrays Jin Ai-xia, a retired woman who enjoys a seemingly comfortable life. Her mother suffers from dementia, she has an adopted elder daughter whom she gave up for adoption when she was younger, and her younger daughter, who is a lesbian, is undergoing artificial insemination. Tragically, her younger daughter passes away, leaving behind a healthy embryo. Jin Ai-xia must navigate her mother’s declining health, the estrangement from her elder daughter, the loss of her younger daughter, and the decision regarding the unborn child. Director Huang Xi highlights the contrast between Jin Aixia’s choice to abandon her daughter as a minor due to an unplanned pregnancy and her current dilemma of whether to keep her deceased daughter’s embryo. This juxtaposition serves to deepen the exploration of the mother-daughter bond at various stages and levels.
Chuang Ching-Shen’s The Uniform is set in late 1990s Taiwan and is inspired by the situation at Taipei First Girls’ High School, where day and night school students shared classrooms. Although both groups wore the same uniforms – distinguished only by the colour of their student ID numbers – the day school was a much more prestigious institution than the other one. In the film, Chloe Xiang and Buffy Chen portray students from both sections who become friends by sharing a desk and even develop feelings for the same academically gifted boy. However, the perceived differences between the day and night schools begin to impact their lives, actions, and even their friendship and love.
The Uniform falls within the familiar genre of Taiwanese campus films. While it features a lighthearted and warm narrative, it also addresses themes of identity anxiety and the pressure to excel academically, influenced by family and societal expectations. The uniform itself serves as a symbol of identity transformation, which is both intriguing and ironic. The subtle distinction in the colors of the student ID numbers symbolizes underlying class differences, creating a compelling visual metaphor.
The film received a positive response following its world premiere in the Special Focus section at the Busan International Film Festival and successfully sold distribution rights to countries including Japan, South Korea, and ten ASEAN nations.
Also having its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival, Tom Lin’s film Yen and Ai-Lee explores the complex relationship between a daughter, played by Kimi Hsia, and a mother (Yang Kuei-mei). Kimi’s character struggles to endure the prolonged domestic abuse her mother faced from her husband for many years. In a moment of rage, she kills her dad and is subsequently imprisoned. After her release, Kimi must navigate her mother’s relationship with a local thug boyfriend and confront the unexpected arrival of a child brought to their home by the woman her father had an affair with. This disrupts Kimi’s efforts to rebuild her life.
In Yen and Ai-Lee, the scenes between Kimi Hsia and Yang Kuei-mei stand out as a major highlight. Shot by Indian cinematographer Kartik Vijay in stunning black and white, the film portrays the complex emotions of love, resentment, conflict, and reconciliation between a mother and daughter. Not only did the film win the Kim Jiseok Award at the Busan International Film Festival, but it was also nominated for eight Golden Horse Awards, showcasing the actresses’ stellar performance.
As we look ahead to 2025, Taiwanese films continue to generate excitement, particularly with two notable entries: A Foggy Tale and Girl. Both films highlight young female perspectives and explore issues faced by different generations. A Foggy Tale directed by Chen Yu-hsun (My Missing Valentine) presents an epic narrative about the families of victims from the White Terror era in the 1950s. On the other hand, Girl marks actress Shu Qi’s debut as a director. The film features Roy Chiu and 9m88 (Joanne Tang Yu-chi), with Golden Horse Award-winning cinematographer Yu Jing-ping serving as the director of photography. Girl has also been recognized by Screen Daily as one of the 75 most anticipated films for international film festival premieres in 2025.
Translated from Chinese into English by Francesco Nati.
Hsiang Yi-fei