Fantasies Behind the Pearly Curtain

hong kong romance

Taiwanese romance film released to commemorate the 9th anniversary of First Films' founding.

Pairs of best college friends, Shen Jung (Brigitte Lin) and Li Lun-mei (Chelsia Chan); Chen Cheng-hsiung (Chin Han) and Fang Juei (Alan Tam) meet at the tennis courts. Fang Juei likes the ebullient Li Lun-mei, but after hearing the contemplative Cheng-hsiung at a school concert, is smitten by his talents and looks. However, as fate would have it, Cheng-hsiung is after the studious and gentler Shen Jung.

This film depicts the conflict between the West and Eastern culture, the Northern and Southern ways of life and the traditional and modern concepts. It consists of six stories.

Forbidden Imperial Tales is a Taiwan History movie

An early Brigitte Lin Romance.

Story of a US-educated scientist who returned to China, and suffered during the years of the Cultural Revolution.

Set in Shanghai in the 1940s. Story of a ballroom girl Jolie Chan who falls in love with a student and becomes pregnant, but the student's family force her to have an abortion.

Jointly and respectively directed by King Hu, Lee Hsing, and Pai Ching-Jui, three major Taiwan directors of the 1970s, this film consist of three shorts with the same cast of two actors and one actress, who through reincarnation meet in three different times.

Directed by some of most well known Chinese-language directors of the time, the portmanteau film Four Moods was an attempt to alleviate Li Han-hsiang’s financial troubles during the late 1960s. Arguably one of his best works, King Hu’s short Anger is an adaptation of the famous Peking opera San Cha Kou; set to opera instrumentation and stylishly shot, the film deftly captures the tense showdown between political schemers, avengers and vagabonds inside an inn. Li Han-hsiang’s Happiness, inspired by the Strange Tales of Liaozhai, tells a tale of reprieve for a kind-hearted ghost, while Pai Ching-Jui’s Joy and Lee Hsing’s Sadness both explore the fateful encounters between mortal men and ghostly women.

Taiwanese drama film directed by Pai Ching-jui.

When a rich guy met a poor gal and fell in love, his authoritative father disapproved of their relationship owing to his girlfriend’s complicated family background and a retarded brother. The gal was forced to leave but despite of all obstacles, the guy persevered in his effort to win his right for love…

There is no dialogue or narration in this "fake" documentary, which has the look of a real documentary, but actually uses actors to portray awakening residents of Taipei as they go about their morning routines. With the camera as our guide we see lively early morning markets, residents going to church, students practicing singing, people exercising, and others heading off to work.

The story of Lonely Seventeen centers on Tan-mei, a seventeen-year-old high school girl who comes from a wealthy family. The film begins with Tan-mei inviting her cousin, who is also her sister’s fiancé, Feng Tse (Ke Jun-Xiong), to come over to her place on a rainy night. However, Feng Tse secretly visits his mistress first and gets seriously wounded after a fight with the woman. When he tries to make a second stop at Tan-mei’s place, he loses control of his car and is killed in a car accident. After the death of Feng Tse, Tan-mei and the mistress start to behave strangely, and both of them are sent to the same mental health institute after their emotional breakdown.

Pai Ching-jui traveled to Italy in 1960 and enrolled in the prestigious Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome in 1962, becoming the first Chinese student ever admitted to the institution. He graduated in 1963 with an experimental short film, Un Amore (鐘情者痴), which he wrote and directed himself — a playful work staging a "love scene" between an actor and a camera. He remains the first Taiwanese filmmaker to have studied cinema in Italy.

Taiwanese film