Emily Y. Chang

A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.

taiwan film

In wake of the First Sino-Japanese War 1894-1895, a group of Japanese warlords calculate that the best way to prepare an invasion of the rest of China from their southern Manchuria staging ground.

Taiwanese drama.

Learning of childhood friend Meihua's death, Lingling goes to Japan to find Meihua's sister, Meifeng. Brutal gangsters demand Lingling return an item Meihua stole, and hold Meifeng hostage. Old friends help Lingling confront the gang.

Four vignettes, each set in different decades from the 1950s through the 1980s, deal with protagonists at different stages of life between childhood and young adulthood.

In this drama, the harsh treatment of women in Chinese society is examined and subtly commented upon as it tells the tale of an impoverished woman living in Shanghai, circa 1910 who tries to support her brother and sister-in-law. A marriage to a wealthy man is arranged for her, and reluctantly she endures it, even though she does not love the man who is as cruel as he is wealthy. His mother is also brutally unkind to her. She then has a son, but her struggles are not over when her husband dies and only leaves her a modest inheritance. Her wretched life has made her bitter, and so she begins making her son suffer as she die; she also becomes addicted to opium.

The young entrepreneur, Wong Shing-tak, has been married for ten year. He and his wife, Li Lin, lead a satisfying life together, until when some friends introduce Wong to a reporter called Yip Yuen. What starts out as purely a business relationship between the two turns into something much more than that. As Wong shows his trust towards Yip more and more, Li becomes increasingly. The marriage between Wong and Li begins to lose its grip...