Lin Tuan-Chiu | First Impressions

We once more thank the Taiwan Film and Audio-Visual Institute for the opportunity to see these marvellous copies of Lin Tuan-Chiu films. In the podcast we discuss the combination of genres in the film — melodrama, court-room drama, documentary, murder-mystery, musical. We discuss the acting in relation to revue theatre. We wonder if a scene from Hou’s Cute Girl finds its inspiration here….and much more.

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

We refer to some images concretely: The Newspaper Headlines

The allusion to politics:

The possible inspiration for a similar moment in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Cute Girl

The framings and compositions:

The countryside:

Listeners might also be interested in the following illustrative clips:

The melodramatic framings of the opening scene

revue acting:

Musical number – Love and threat:

Documentary Sequence:

The reveal:

Court-room flash-back:

Taiwanese Widescreen Process:

Other telling images (or sub-titles) from the film:

The Taiwan Film & Audio-visual Institute’s You Tube page may be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv9cNssVud_2AtBVzykUieg

and the next films its made available for the next few days are:

The Bride Who Has Returned From Hell, 1965

Foolish Bride, Naive Bridegroom (1967)

and

Dangerous Youth (1969)

all by Hsin Chi, so that’s what we will be exploring in the next few podcasts.

Richard has also provided the following links, adding, ‘

nothing particular to add to these but interesting reviews’: https://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/may-13th-night-of-sorrow

https://taiyupian.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/May-13th-Night-of-Sorrow.pdf

There’s a wonderful introduction to Taiyupian Cinema: an introduction to Taiwan-language cinema on youtube here:

José Arroyo

We extend our thanks once more to the Taiwan Film & Audio-visual Institute for making these three Lin Tuan-Chiu films available. In this podcast we discuss Six Suspects, a 1965 mystery/noir that was never released. We discuss its peculiar flashback structure, the beauty of the imagery and composition in contrast to the other somewhat clunky aspects of narration, what the film tells us about the culture, its possible relation to Ozu in terms of compositions and to mid 60s Japanese Crime Drama in relation to look and style. A somewhat unsatisfying film that we nonetheless encourage people to see.