影像・台灣

In the fifties, many Taiwanese intellectuals, workers and farmers were suspected of being communist spies by the dictatorial authority. They were either jailed or killed. Hsu Chin-yu was one of them. She was an adopted child, became a worker at the age of 14 and went to work in Taipei post office when she was 24. She participated in a study group. This experience opened her mind and freed her thoughts. She went on to join the workers’ movement and, as a result, she was jailed for 15 years. It changed her life irrecovably.

Taiwanese Spiderman are not Hollywood movie stars. They are construction workers who spend their lives on the Southern Cross-island Highway. Most of them are Atayal people from Hualian. With their natural gifts, they use simple equipment to shimmy up and down the cliff-face to strengthen the mountain where mudslides are prone to occur. They are far away from home, working till their backs break during the day, drinking and sleeping after work. The pay don’t match the risk factor of their work. Taiwanese spiderman risk their lives for meager pay.

This film is the result of a promise made between the filmmakers and a patient dying of cancer on the day of their departure from the Heart Lotus Ward. The Heart Lotus Ward is the headquarter of the palliative care center of the Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital in Hualien. Aided by professionals and volunteers, the patients spend the final phase of their lives here. At the final stop in life, heart is the only thing to be seen.

The son, Y.C., like many men nowadays, is an ordinary businessman. He didn’t know much about his father’s life outside the family - nor did he have an interest in it. The father, K.T., lived till the age of 92. He was a famous public servant. He didn’t spend much time at home and, even when he was at home, he didn’t share much of his outside life. His lifetime wish was to see his country become a success. After fifty years as a public servant, he was given the title as the Godfather of Taiwan’s economic and technology success.

At the foot of a mountain, there is a one-hundred-year-old house. Four women decide to start up a family there. In their capable hands, they build a home for women in this once deserted house. Seven years ago, Hsing Fen and Yen Chun opened a teahouse in Gueishan town, Taoyuan County. Two years later, Hsiao Mao joined the group and established a community historical and cultural society here. Later, her sister, Ya Hui, came to help take care of the teahouse. Then the four women, closely connected with each other, decided to become a real family.