Sheng-mei Ma | First Impressions

We continue our discussion of the GOLDEN DECADES: CINEMATIC MASTERS OF THE GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS with a chat on He Never Gives Up (LI Hsing, Taiwan, 1979). Li won the Golden Horse Award for Best Director for his films Beautiful Duckling (1965), Execution in Autumn (1972), and He Never Gives Up (1978) setting a record in Taiwan’s film history that remains unbroken, marking the pinnacle of Li Hsing’s directing career. It’s also part of a run — Good Morning Taipei (1979) and The Story of A Small Town (1980) – of very successful films. This is our opportunity, a mixed blessing, to see a ‘Healthy Realist’ film, ‘uplifting’, and we now clearly see why the New Wave — so clearly a response to ‘Healthy Realism’ — made such an impact. The film is based on a real story, published as A Raft in the Storm, that dealt with a child overcoming disability.

This is what we’ve been able to find out about A Raft in the Storm:

the first screenshot above is from Diaspora Literature and Visual Culture: Asia in Flight by Sheng-mei Ma and also the link to the second screenshot is (https://www.kkday.com/en/tour/932)

In the podcast below, we discuss the film in relation to its script, healthy realism, ideology, hope, disability, and the film’s trade in platitudes. Richard is the voice of reason; I despised many aspects of it.