Available on Dual Format Blu-Ray/ DVD now.
It’s boom-time in Taiwan in the 1980’s (propped up with American aid dollars). Pop star Lin Yang plays a sad young woman working as a waitress in a KFC. She goes to night classes to improve her prospects while dealing with a sticky family life and mooning over a boy who has no interest in her. The kids of Taipei, it seems, are the same everywhere. Farting in philosophy class, fire-jumping on the beach, smoking in the lavs. “We can to be young like this forever,” says one of the gang, balefully. How true.
A nice mix of Taiwan and Western pop is held under on the soundtrack as the boys in the sharp suits and greasy hair and the girls in ponytails and shoulder pads try to act adult. But they skirt danger mixing with petty criminals. They long for American Graffiti but get Mean Streets instead. There are hints of the repressive Taiwan regime where teachers get sacked for not toeing the party line and the police raid bars. The claustrophobic stillness of the interiors contrasts with the neon-blinking night and chill smoggy dawn of the city. And no one seems particularly joyful. The violence of midnight shootouts is wretched and banal.
The static camera and short scenes that play out in real time take a little getting used to. But this is a rewarding, atmospheric movie in many ways.