European Premiere | In Competition
Taiwan, 2025, 134’, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Cantonese
Directed by: Chen Yu-hsun
Screenplay: Chen Yu-hsun
Cinematography (color): Chen Chi-wen
Editing: Lai Hsiu-hsiung
Production Designer: Wang Chih-chen
Music: Lu Luming
Producers: Yeh Jufeng, Lee Lieh
Cast: Caitlin Fang (Yue), Will Or (Chao Kung-dao), 9m88 (Hsia), Chen Yi-wen (Fan Chun), Emerson Tsai (Lee Erh-hsiung), John Hu (A-Lin), Chen Chun-cheng (Dirty Tsai), Tseng Jing-hua (Yun), Lily (old Yue), Vivian Sung (Nian-yun), Bamboo Chen (Yue’s uncle)
Date of First Release in Territory: November 27th, 2025
Taiwan’s martial law period, which lasted from 1949 to 1987, was also known as the white terror era because of the brutality that dissidents suffered at the hands of the Kuomintang (KMT) government and the prevalent fear of speaking up across society. Students, journalists, activists and others falsely accused of “anti-state activities” were jailed. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 civilians were executed.
Since the end of martial law, Taiwanese filmmakers have delved into the period in numerous films – most notably Hou Hsiao-hsien’s
A City of Sadness (1989), Wan Jen’s
Super Citizen Ko (1995), John Hsu’s video game-based
Detention (2019), and most recently
Untold Herstory (2022) – but rather than making another harrowing look at the prisoners’ ordeal, director Chen Yu-hsun shifts the spotlight to those suffering outside the prisons with
A Foggy Tale, his masterful Golden Horse-winning drama.
The film opens in 1953, when university student Yun (Tseng Jing-hua) is hiding from the police with the help of his younger sister, Yue (Caitlin Fang). However, he is captured by the police and vanishes without a trace. A year later, Yue and her family are informed that Yun has been executed. Despite the astronomical price to reclaim Yun’s corpse, Yue nevertheless makes the trek from Chiayi to Taipei. When she falls into a human trafficker’s trap, she is saved by Kung-dao (Will Or), a former KMT soldier who has just served a prison sentence and is now being hounded by a senior member of the secret police (Chen Yi-wen) for leads about the whereabouts of suspected dissidents.
Inspired by accounts by family members of the wrongly imprisoned,
A Foggy Tale takes viewers on an immersive odyssey through life in Taipei during the early white terror era (Wang Chih-chen’s production design and You Li-wun’s art direction fully deserve their Golden Horse win), when one has to survive not only an authoritarian regime, but also opportunistic swindlers, casual corruption and widespread poverty. However, Chen, better known for critically acclaimed comedies like
Tropical Fish,
Zone Pro Site and the Golden Horse-winning romantic comedy
My Missing Valentine than serious dramas like this, finds grounded everyday humour, showing that normal life nevertheless had to continue in some form even in such dark times.
While not exactly shying away from politics, Chen uses
A Foggy Tale not as a call to action, but as remembrance of people like Kung-dao and Yun, the “fog” who tried their best to change their world, only to fail and dissipate into oblivion. In a grim scene that shows the inhumanity of the regime, a worker sifts through a pool filled with executed prisoners without a single emotion, like it was just another day at work.
But the heart of
A Foggy Tale is Yue and Kung-dao’s unlikely friendship. In a city where predators hide behind every corner, Kung-dao’s kindness and loyalty to Yue, despite his ulterior motives, make up the film’s most tender moments. In her impressive performance as Yue, Caitlin Fang commands the screen with a mix of tenacity, grief and naivete. However, the real revelation is Hong Kong’s Will Or, who is both hilarious and heartbreaking as the perpetually irate Kung-dao. The irony that the crudest character of the film happens to also be the one with the most kindness and humanity can only be a masterstroke devised by someone like Chen Yu-hsun.
Chen Yu-hsun
Chen Yu-hsun made his directorial debut with Tropical Fish (1994), which won Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Horse Awards. Displeased with the Taiwanese film industry, Chen left filmmaking for the advertising world for over a decade. In 2013, his comeback film Zone Pro Site was a massive commercial success. With My Missing Valentine (2020), he became the first filmmaker to win Best Director at all three major Taiwanese film awards: The Golden Horses Awards, the Taipei Film Awards and the Taiwan Film Critics Society Award.
FILMOGRAPHY
1994 – Tropical Fish
1997 – Love Go Go
2013 – Zone Pro Site
2017 – The Village of No Return
2020 – My Missing Valentine
2025 – A Foggy Tale