Taiwanese-Language Cinema

This anthology aims to present a multiplicity of different approaches to the vibrant and diverse commercial film industry known as Taiwanese-language cinema. ‘Taiwanese-language cinema’ was a cycle of over 1,000 dramatic feature films made between 1955 and 1979 in the local variety of the Minnanhua Chinese spoken language most commonly spoken on the island, also known as ‘Taiwanese’ (taiyu). These films were made by privately-owned companies, most of which were small and short-lived. When the industry declined in the early 1970s, there was no archive to collect the prints, and less than 200 complete films survive. Despised at the time by both the KMT government, which promoted Mandarin as the national language, and cinephiles who aspired to art cinema, Taiwanese-language cinema was quickly forgotten. But now that cinephiles embrace a much wider variety of films and Taiwan is more interested in its local culture and heritage, films are being restored and made available with subtitles. This in turn is stimulating new scholarship, both in Chinese in Taiwan and in other languages, which challenges our conventional understandings of Taiwanese film history and opens up new approaches.