Heian Zhi Guang
Taiwan,
1999, 102 min
Shown in 2000
CREDITS
- dir
-
Chang Tso-chi
- prod
-
Lu Shih-yuan, Chen Xiseng
- scr
-
Chang Tso-chi
- cam
-
Chang Tsang
- editor
-
Chen Po-wen
- cast
-
Lee Kang-i, Tsai Ming-shoiu, Shie Bau-huei, He Hugang-ji
- source
-
Trust Film Sales, Filmbyen, P.B. 199, Avedøre Tvaervej 10, DK-2650 Hvidovre, Denmark. FAX: 45-36-774448. EMAIL: trust@trust-film.dk
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Lee Kang-i in person.
OTHER
Add Chang Tso-chi to the list of exceptional new filmmakers from Taiwan. A former assistant director to the great Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chang takes us deep inside a most unusual family. Feisty Kang-yi is home from college for summer vacation. She’s helping out with the family massage business, run by her blind father and staffed by an extended family of live-in blind masseuses. When Kang-yi falls for a neighborhood gangster-to-be, a jealous former boyfriend from a rival clan precipitates a gang war. But Chang has much more on his mind than teen romance and gangster histrionics. Working entirely with nonprofessional actors, Chang’s portrait of this enchanting, self-sufficient household is wonderfully tender and unaffected. The film’s seductive pace is realized with a camera dreamily prowling their apartment amid the day-to-day family bustle, punctuated by slow fade-outs and dissolves, which elegantly mirror Kang-yi’s yearning inner self. It’s the conflict between her romantic longings and the reality of her family’s hardscrabble life that is the heart of Darkness and Light. And it all wraps up with a surprisingly matter-of-fact, wish-fulfilling ending that’s nearly perfect.
—Tod Booth
FACTOID #81
Anjelica Huston was the first recipient of the Piper-Heidsieck Award in 1991. When Huston received the prize from the champagne maker, she joked, “Can I drink it?”
