The many voices behind Taiwan New Cinema

Curating last month’s season Myriad Voices: Reframing Taiwan New Cinema provided a welcome opportunity to reflect on my long, personal connection to the movement. While I can’t recall the exact titles I first saw, I carry a vivid, impressionistic memory of encountering these films in the early 2000s as a student in Seoul.

The central female characters, with their strong yet understated presence (and their striking short haircuts – something familiar in life, yet rarely seen in Korean cinema), became firmly etched in my mind. Equally affecting were the depictions of Asian modernity and urban life: scenes that seemed at once futuristic and anachronistic, the exhilarating adult world coexisting on screen with unhurried, carefree childhoods. These images struck a chord; they echoed my own experience of growing up in Korea during the 1980s and 90s, while also gesturing towards what I was imagining, or perhaps yearning to see more of.

Taiwan New Cinema is often discussed as an auteur-led movement, largely framed around internationally acclaimed directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang. For many of us outside Taiwan, the movement first arrived with the slightly awkward phrasing of ‘Taiwan New Cinema’ in English. We were introduced to it through their bold vision, artistic ambition and, memorably, through a widely circulated group photo of five young men – Wu Nien-jen, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Chen Kun-hou and Jan Hung-tze – embodying youthful rebellion and urban adventure.

But as I revisited the films I had always admired, I found the ‘movement’ expanding in both scope and spirit. Many filmmakers who had worked largely behind the scenes began to surface in my research, their collaborations revealing a shared desire to reshape cinematic language. Thanks to the generous support of the Taiwan Audiovisual Film Institute and the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, this season became an effort to assemble some of the lesser-voiced fragments of that history, and develop a broader, more inclusive reframing. Did Taiwan New Cinema really begin with In Our Time in 1982? How did those involved perceive this cinematic shift as it unfolded?

As part of the season, I had the privilege of speaking with two key figures in the movement: Chen Kun-hou, director of Out of the Blue (1984) and My Favourite Season (1985), and Huang Yu-shan, director of Autumn Tempest (1988).

Chen began his film career in the 1960s as an assistant cinematographer before becoming a prolific cinematographer. His early credits include Story of Mother (1973), and several acclaimed collaborations with Lee Hsing, such as He Never Gives Up (1978). He went on to work as director of photography on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first six films, from Cute Girl (1980) to A Summer at Grandpa’s (1984). In 1982, he co-founded Evergreen Film production company, which produced Growing Up (1983) – a film he also directed – which became a major critical and commercial success, and is considered one of the touchstones of Taiwan New Cinema. To date, he has directed 15 feature films.

Huang Yu-shan entered the industry in 1977 as assistant director to Li Hsing, working on his ‘homeland realism’ films, such as He Never Gives Up (1979) and The Story of a Small Town (1979). After studying cinema at NYU, she returned to Taiwan to direct documentaries on local artists. Commissioned by the Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC), her 1988 feature debut Autumn Tempest was a box office hit, followed by Twin Bracelets (1989), which received international attention and was discussed for its feminist and ethnographic approach. Beyond filmmaking, she is also an educator and festival organiser, having founded the Women Make Waves International Film Festival in 1993, and the South Taiwan Film Festival in 2000, helping shape Taiwan’s independent cinema landscape.

Both filmmakers offered unique insights into the origins of Taiwan New Cinema. Chen gently challenged the commonly held view that the movement began with In Our Time, suggesting that its roots stretch further back to The Green, Green Grass of Home (1982) and Growing Up (1983), which had been in development long before their official release. These films marked a notable shift away from formulaic commercial cinema, both formally and thematically, and pioneered on-location shooting and environmental themes, setting the tone for what was to follow.

Chen recalled joining the CMPC back in 1961, when Taiwanese film was transitioning from black and white to colour. While early post-war cinema was dominated by mainland Chinese directors, by the 1950s efforts to cultivate local Taiwanese talent had begun. Indeed, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwanese-language films (Taiyupian) that reflected the island’s local culture rose to become the most popular genre in Taiwan. Chen emerged as part of this new wave, alongside key figures such as editor Liao Ching-sung and sound designer Tu Duu-Chih, who have been prolific, and instrumental in developing both technical expertise and narrative complexity within the industry.

By the late 1970s, fatigue with repetitive storylines and styles prompted Chen, and contemporaries like Chang Yi (Kuei-mei, a Woman and This Love of Mine), to pursue more authentic, socially grounded storytelling. Influenced by feminist literature by Hsiao Sa and Chu Tien-wen, and European cinema introduced by filmmakers trained abroad, they pushed for a realism that more accurately reflected the lives of ordinary Taiwanese people.

“I consider myself a practitioner,” Chen told me, “but this programme has provided me with a rare opportunity to revisit and reflect more seriously on the period when I first joined CMPC, as well as on the events that unfolded throughout the 1980s – the friendships, the camaraderie and the shared aspirations of that time.”

For Huang, a turning point came with Good Morning Taipei (1979), a collaboration between Hsiao Yeh, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Li Hsing, Chen and herself. While still rooted in the tradition of ‘healthy realism’, the film was deeply engaged with the everyday lives of rural people and can be seen as a precursor to Taiwan New Cinema. Huang noted that by the late 1970s, a group of filmmakers – including Chen and Wang Chu-chin, who won best director at the Golden Horse Awards for The Legend of the Six Dynasties (1979) – were already working independently. They were not as unified as the later Taiwan New Cinema cohort; however, this earlier group had already begun to explore new approaches to filmmaking. In Huang’s view, the spirit of ‘new cinema’ has always been an ongoing process.

“While working for more established directors at the time, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Chen Kun-hou felt that something else was needed, perhaps mirroring the atmosphere of 1950s France with the New Wave movement,” Huang says. “Of course, if it had been left solely to Chen and Hou, I’m not sure they would have been able to create the wave on their own. When Edward Yang and Wan Jen returned from the US, alongside Chang Yi, who was working in Taiwan at the time, and with the help and trust of Hsiao Yei and Wu Nien-jen, who were in charge of CMPC, all of them together made it possible to launch some of the early projects (now known as ‘Taiwan New Cinema’) that had been brewing for some time.”

Both Chen and Huang have critiqued the term ‘New Cinema’, emphasising that it risks erasing the decades of groundwork laid by earlier generations. For Chen, the movement did not appear overnight; it was the result of years of collaboration, compromise and quiet rebellion by filmmakers, cast and crew – many of whom had honed their skills in supporting roles long before receiving formal recognition or earning their place in the director’s chair.

Chen also highlighted the contributions of Hsu Shu-chen, one of the few women at the time working across multiple departments in the film industry. Her roles – as script supervisor, assistant director, costume designer, screenwriter and planner – were essential to major productions such as The Sandwich Man (1983), The Boys from Fengkuei (1983), Out of the Blue and My Favourite Season.

Equally important was screenwriter Chu Tien-wen, whose work brought intellectual depth and emotional nuance to the movement. Beginning her film career in 1982 with an adaptation of her short story Growing Up, co-written with Hou Hsiao-hsien, she went on to write 12 screenplays during the New Cinema period; several of her screenplays later published as books, Chu’s writing shaped the female-centred narratives of the era.

Sylvia Chang – an actor, director, producer and singer – also played a pivotal role. In 1981, she co-produced the Eleven Women television series, offering a platform for emerging directors to experiment. Already a successful actor with over 40 films to her name, Chang was willing to star in projects by new directors, such as In Our Time, That Day, on the Beach (1983) and My Favourite Season. Her influence extended well beyond performance, helping to shape the very fabric of Taiwan New Cinema.

Ultimately, what both Chen and Huang stress is the collective and interconnected nature of the movement. Taiwan New Cinema did not arise from a singular turning point or individual figure, but from a web of evolving relationships, sustained efforts and shared ideals – many of them driven by individuals whose names rarely appear in film retrospectives or textbooks. This season, therefore, was an attempt to honour those many voices.

Myriad Voices: Reframing Taiwan New Cinema ran at BFI Southbank in April.