The Decision

Seven years ago, Lin Cheng was jailed for his father’s death. Finally released, he and older brother Hsiang, the real culprit, must face the consequences of the past together.

Fewer number of indigenous people in Taiwan still believe in Shamanism. Shamans bore responsibility for communicating with the spirit world, and relied on rituals to help others to avoid misfortune. However, both the suffering patient who wishes to have a ritual performed and the shaman performing the ritual have their own troubles. Can these wounded spirits find healing in beliefs?

A-Yun, a middle-aged woman from Vietnam, remarries an old man in Taiwan, bringing along her little son from her first marriage. Devoted as she is to her new husband, she is not treated as a family member. In their suffocating marriage, there is no love, but rather daily routine. Repressed desire makes her turn to her stepchild, a considerate and amiable young man.

Teymu has been lying in bed for a long time because of illness, looked after by a Vietnamese caretaker. One day, his daughter returns and wakes him up. It turns out his children are arguing over his land. A monkey appears and leads him on a spiritual journey.

For hundreds of years, Taiwan has been under different colonial rules. From the Dutch, the Spanish, the Japanese, and nowadays Republic of China, each regime left their footprints on this island. Only the indigenous people of this island experienced of the process. They were given different names during different periods of colonisation and their cultures have been changed. Through the life of a Truku elder, we see the history of aboriginal recertification movement.