International Festival Premiere | In Competition
Taiwan, 2025, 134’, Mandarin, Taiwanese
Directed by: Gavin Lin
Screenplay: Hermes Lu
Cinematography (color): Eric Chou
Editing: Lin Chengxin
Production Design: Guo Yijun
Music: George Chen, Annie Lo
Producer: Liu Wei-jan
Cast: Ivy Chen (Hui-zhen), Judy Ongg (Yu-ying), Manxi Ho (You-xin), Amber An (A-Lan), Sun Shu-mei (A-Pei), Chung Hsin-ling (Wang), Annie Chen (Yu-wen), Miao Ke-li (Chief Fang), Esther Huang (young Yu-ying), Lo Chen-en (Zi-qing)
Date of First Release in Territory: December 31st, 2025
In 2018, director Gavin Lin adapted the Korean tearjerker
More Than Blue into the Taiwanese remake of the same name. Having two hugely popular stars at the peak of their popularity and a heartrending will-they-won’t-they love story spelled box office success across the region. It even spawned a popular award-winning Netflix television adaptation.
Seven years later, Lin and writer Hermes Lu have repeated their success with another local adaptation of a Korean film. Based on Kang Dae-kyu’s 2010 hit
Harmony,
Sunshine Women’s Choir had a slow start at the box office when it was released on New Year’s Eve 2025. However, positive word-of-mouth spread quickly, and the film ended up topping Taiwan’s box office for 58 consecutive days. By Valentine’s Day, it became the top-grossing Taiwanese film of all time, beating the 18-year-old record set by Wei Te-sheng’s
Cape No. 7 (2008).
Like
More Than Blue, the key to the success of
Sunshine Women’s Choir is undoubtedly its ability to lead the audience through a full gamut of emotions before getting them to cry their eyes out. However, Lin and Lu are also smart enough to know that they can’t evoke such emotions without building likeable characters to sympathise with.
The film begins in a hospital labour room, where Hui-zhen (
More Than Blue’s Ivy Chen), imprisoned for killing her abusive husband, is giving birth to a baby girl. Jump ahead to one year later, and Hui-zhen and baby daughter Yun-xi (Taiwanese prisons allow babies to stay with their mothers until they reach three years old) are now sharing a cell with three other cellmates who love them to death – the elderly Yu-ying (pop legend Judy Ongg), A-Lan (Amber An) and A-Pei (Sun Shu-mei).
Despite the film’s title, the titular women’s prison choir doesn’t come up until 30 minutes into the film because Lin and Lu take their time to set up the characters, in particular the friction between our heroines and their new cellmate, 19-year-old You-xin (Manxi Ho). This is the type of prison drama where every prisoner seems to have a tragic reason for their incarceration, and the thing that ties Hui-zhen, Yu-ying and You-xin together is motherhood: Hui-zhen decides to put Yun-xi up for adoption early so her degenerative eye disease can be treated properly; Yu-ying has an estranged adult daughter who refuses to speak to her because she, like Hui-zhen, murdered her abusive partner; and You-xin’s traumatic past was partly caused by her mother’s abandonment. These elements will lead to a tear-inspiring conclusion, but what gives the film its heart is the emotional uplift of the musical sequences. When Hui-zhen sees Yun-xi captivated by a choral performance, she comes up with the idea of forming a prison choir (though the women sing well-known Taiwanese pop songs rather than traditional choir pieces). But instead of giving the story artificial stakes by having a competition for the women to compete for, Lin and Lu ensure that there won’t be a dry eye in the house by having the climactic performance lead to the film’s most emotional moment.
Like
More Than Blue,
Sunshine Women’s Choir is about sacrifices made in the name of love. While the former is about a type of almost foolishly unselfish romantic love that may not appeal to everyone, the latter’s depiction of axiomatic parental love – whether it’s Hui-zhen’s love for Yun-xi or Yu-ying’s maternal caring for her cellmates – will likely leave parents (especially mothers) sobbing in their seats. Even those who don’t like melodramas may find comfort in knowing that a celebration of camaraderie shared by women who have been victims of patriarchal oppression is now the most popular Taiwanese film of all time.
Gavin Lin
Educated in the US, Gavin Lin made his feature film debut in 2010 with In Case of Love. In 2018, his adaptation of the Korean film More Than Blue was a major box office success across the Chinese-speaking world. In 2026, Sunshine Women’s Choir, another adaptation of a Korean film, broke the record for the highest-grossing Taiwanese film of all time. In addition to his feature film work, Lin has also directed music videos, co-written novels and penned pop song lyrics.
FILMOGRAPHY
2010 – In Case of Love
2013 – A Moment of Love
2016 – Welcome to the Happy
Days
2018 – More Than Blue
2021 – A Trip with Your Wife
2022 – One Week Friends
2023 – Yesterday Once More
2025 – Sunshine Women’s Choir