Plan to Watch Taiwanese Movies

Year of 1969, after drawing an unlucky number from a lottery result, Pao from southern Taiwan has to serve the military in the remote and perilous island of Kinmen which is seen as the most dangerous military base due to its geographical location that is too close to China. Pao is assigned to the Sea Dragon, a unit known for having the toughest physical training. However, Pao is about to find out that that the greatest challenge in his military service is not in the Sea Dragon but lies in Unit 831, a special task he is later appointed to.  

In the 1980s, high school students Aaron, Mabel and Liam are best friends and also caught in a love triangle. As the three friends go through the turbulent times, when social revolution takes hold over martial law, their relationships go through many ups and downs.  

A Japanese tourist takes refuge from a rainstorm inside a once-popular movie theater, a decrepit old barn of a cinema that is screening a martial arts classic, King Hu's 1966 "Dragon Inn". Even with the rain bucketing down outside, it doesn't pull much of an audience - and some of those who have turned up are less interested in the movie than in the possibility of meeting a stranger in the dark.

A-ho is a boy from an ordinary family. His father is a driver education instructor, his mother is a hairstylist, and his older brother is a high school student set to enter college. A-ho’s brother A-hao is a model student, and his father has high expectations of him. On the other hand, A-ho is a troublemaker and the black sheep of the family. One day, a terrible misfortune befalls A-ho’s family, and A-ho, who learns about his girlfriend’s pregnancy, gets into serious trouble because of his friends and ends up in a juvenile detention center. His father’s anger and contempt for A-ho grow extreme, and a series of crises completely shatter the family. Released from the detention center, A-ho tries his best as the head of his family, but society does not accept him and his life continues in a downward spiral. A Sun presents a realistic portrayal of the process in which an ordinary family pushed to the brink of their limits comes to embrace each other.

Cream, a bright personality with a dark streak somehow manages to make a connection with the secretive K. As high school classmates, they share their loneliness, get close quickly, and fill the emptiness in each other. Cream moves into K’s place and they depend on each other like a family or lovers. Years go by, and K works for a record company and Cream becomes a lyricist, but they still live together, neither a couple nor friends. Diagnosed with leukemia, K is hesitant to reveal his illness because he does not want to hurt Cream by leaving her alone. Not knowing any of this, Cream starts dating another man, eventually accepting his marriage proposal. As a Taiwanese remake of a Korean film, More Than Blue is familiar with twists and a melodramatic story, but it stimulates tears by strongly evoking Taiwan′s unique emotions.

During the Japanese rule of Taiwan, the aboriginal Seediq were forced to lose their own culture and give up their faith. Men were subject to harsh labor and kept from traditional hunting; whereas women had to serve the Japanese policemen and their families by doing the household work and giving up their traditional weaving work. Above all, they were forbidden to tattoo their faces. And these tattoos were seen as the Seediq's traditional belief to transform themselves into Seediq Bale ("true humans"). Mona Rudao, the protagonist, witnessed the repression by the Japanese over a period of 30 years.

A high school multiracial Kano baseball team from southern Taiwan overcoming extreme odds to represent the island in the 1931 Japanese High School Baseball Championship at Koshien Stadium in Japan, when Taiwan was still under Japanese rule. Performing beyond all expectations, the underdog team advanced to the championship game in the tournament.

Set in 1980s Taiwan, after the end of military dictatorship, Monga centers around the troubled lives of five boys coming of age together. The narrator of the story, Mosquito, is invited to be a part of the gang after a silly fight over a chicken leg. Mosquito has grown up without a father and has never had any real friends, so after Monk, Dragon and the others take him under their wing, he discovers an irresistible world of friendship and brotherhood. However, Mosquito soon discovers that in this violent world things aren't always what they seem. When a group of mainlanders attempt to take over Monga, the fragile balance over the district's turf is threatened, friendship is tested, and loyalty is questioned.  

Changhua, west coast of Taiwan, 1994. Sixteen-year-old Ko Ching Teng is a pupil at Chingchang High School, along with his pals “Boner”, the serious “Fattie” A Ho, the bragging “Cock Tsao” and the lascivious “Groin”. All have a crush on the brightest student in their class, goody two-shoes Shen Chia Yi, but she is only interested in her studies. When Ching Teng and Boner are caught fooling around in class, Ching Teng is made to sit in front of her and is put under her personal supervision. Chia Yi makes it her personal mission to get Ching Teng interested in taking schoolwork seriously.  

A 2008 Taiwanese romance comedic music-drama film written and directed by Wei Te Sheng, his first full-length motion picture. The film is in Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese with significant lines in Japanese. Even without a strong promotional campaign, the film had become so popular in Taiwan that on November 1, 2008, it became the 2nd top-grossing film in the country's cinematic history, behind James Cameron's Titanic. In the 1940s, near the end of the Japanese era of Taiwan, an unnamed teacher dispatched to the southernmost town of Hengchun falls in love with a local girl with the Japanese name Tomoko. After the Surrender of Japan, the teacher is forced to return home. On his trip back, he pens seven love letters to express his regret for leaving Tomoko. More than 60 years after the teacher left Tomoko, Aga is introduced as a struggling young Hengchun-native rock band singer who could not find success in Taipei. After returning to his hometown, Aga comes across an undeliverable piece of mail that was supposed to be returned to the sender; the daughter of the now-deceased Japanese teacher has decided to mail the unsent love letters to Taiwan after discovering them. Aga unlawfully keeps and opens the package to discover its contents, but the old Japanese-style address Cape No. 7, Koushun District, Takao Prefecture can no longer be found. Meantime a local resort hotel inside nearby Kenting National Park is organizing a beach concert featuring Japanese pop singer Kousuke Atari, but Aga's stepfather makes use of his official position to insist that the opening band be composed of locals. Tomoko (Chie Tanaka), an over-the-hill Mandarin-speaking Japanese fashion model dispatched to Hengchun, is assigned the difficult task of managing this hastily assembled band, led by Aga along with six other locals of rather particular backgrounds.