Taipei Story (1985)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung (Hsiao-Hsien Hou) is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.
- Actors:
- Chin Tsai, Hsiao-hsien Hou, I-Chen Ko, Su-Yun Ko, Nien-Jen Wu, Hsiu-Ling Lin, Shu-fang Chen, Te-Nan Lai, De-ming Lyu, Fang Mei, Peng Sun, Nai-Chu Ting, Ping Nan Wu, Li-Yin Yang, Shu-yao Yang, Shi Zhang
- Directors:
- Edward Yang
- Writers:
- T'ien-wen Chu, Hsiao-hsien Hou, Edward Yang
- Aka:
- Qing mei zhu ma
- Genres:
- Drama, Sports & Sport Films
- Countries:
- Taiwan
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Reviews (1) of Taipei Story
When the Future Arrives Too Soon - Taipei Story review by griggs
Taipei Story predates Yi Yi, A Brighter Summer Day, and The Terrorizers, but it already contains the emotional DNA of Edward Yang’s later work. Co-written by Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien—who also stars as the male lead—it’s a film about a couple, perhaps a city, caught between fading pasts and uncertain futures. Their relationship decays in slow motion, framed by a Taipei changing faster than anyone can handle.
Yang’s touch is subtler here, less polished than his later work, but no less potent. There’s a quiet devastation in every scene, a sense that life is slipping through these characters’ fingers. At the same time, they remain paralysed by nostalgia or indecision.
It’s not as expansive or intricate as A Brighter Summer Day, but it shares its sense of looming dread. And though it lacks the narrative trickery of The Terrorizers, it’s just as precise in capturing isolation. A sombre, aching portrait of modern disconnection—and a vital early entry in Yang’s legacy.