A Brief History of Taiwan Cinema.pdf

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A Brief History of Taiwan Cinema
Daw-Ming Lee
Associate Professor
Department of Filmmaking, Taipei National University of the Arts
dawminglee@gmail.com
(Adapted from Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema )
I. Taiwan Cinema Under Japanese Rule
Films were brought to Taiwan by the Japanese during its colonial rule. However,
the Japanese, neither before 1945 nor after World War II, never considered Taiwan
films to be part of Japanese cinema. They were simply treated, just like the cinema in
colonized Korea or Manchuria, as films from the colonies - a supplement, if counted
at all, to Japanese cinema. When the KMT took over Taiwan after the end of World
War II, the cinema born under Japanese colonization was completely discredited and
obliterated. The history of Taiwan cinema after 1945 was considered by the
Nationalist government, and its film historians, to be an extension of, and addition to
the history of Chinese cinema (and to the film history of the Republic of China, for
that matter) on the Mainland before 1945.
Furthermore, in the eyes of the Nationalists, the history of Taiwan cinema
certainly has nothing to do with any Mainland China cinema history after 1949 (i.e.,
the film history of the People’s Republic of China, which the KMT never even
recognized until the late 1990s). It is against such a tangled and intense political and
historical background, that cinema in Taiwan developed a complex (and sometimes
twisted) relationship with cinema in Japan, Hong Kong, and China.
The history of cinema in Taiwan can be traced back as far as 1897, when a
Mutoscope-like motion picture device was reported as doing great business in a
makeshift tent outside the western gate of Taipei (Taihoku). The device was followed
by Thomas Alva Edison’s Vitascope in 1899 and the Lumière Brothers’
Cinématographe in 1900, which arrived later than in many other parts of the world.
The delayed arrival of cinema in Taiwan may be attributed to the unstable political
conditions, the fact that the Japanese population in Taiwan was too small to sustain a
film business during the early years of Japanese rule.

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Despite their commercial use in theaters and at make-shift sites, the systems of
Edison and the Lumières were promoted as scientific inventions. Vitascope was
described as a “moving electric picture” invented by Edison of America, and the
Cinématographe, “a result of a 21-year application of physics and chemistry by
Messrs. Lumière, Ph.D., of Leon, France.” Such a way of introducing cinema to
Taiwan was in line with the early colonial government’s policy to bring modernization
to the “backward” colony. After all, cinema was the invention of Western (spelled
“modern”) civilization, and a symbol of new technology.
Edison’s Vitascope was brought to Taiwan in September 1899. The
Spanish-American W
ar and other titles were shown to Japanese audiences for 10 days
at a theater in central Taipei. Before that, an unknown system - a “Western electric
shadow play” - had already been introduced to local Taiwanese in Taipei a month
earlier by Zhang Poqi, a Cantonese projectionist. Exhibition was inside a house, with
four screenings daily, so it must have attracted the populace from all over Taipei.
However, there is no further information regarding Zhang’s origin or the system he
used for the electric shadow plays.
The Lumières’ Cinématographe was publicly introduced in Taiwan on 21 June,
1900, at the Cross Theater (Jūji-kan) in Taipei. It was brought in by Oshima Putaichi,
a Japanese restaurant owner and businessman living in Taipei. Oshima obviously
solicited help from the “French Automatic Magic Pictures Association,” most likely
the same organization set up by Yokota Einosuke when he screened Lumière films in
Tokyo in 1897. Five days earlier, the program was sneak previewed to a private club
audience and was enthusiastically welcomed. Throughout Japanese colonial rule,
Japanese and native Taiwanese audiences usually did not mix in theaters, so after the
10-day showing of Lumière films to a predominantly Japanese audience, Oshima and
his projectionist Matsuura Shōzō moved the exhibition to the northern part of Taipei
City, in quest of a mostly local Taiwanese audience. Screenings in a makeshift public
hall were said to be extremely successful, and the partners earned a great profit.
There was no theater dedicated specifically for showing films until the 1910s.
Film exhibitions held by traveling projectionists, when no theater was available,
usually took place in makeshift tents or on stages in front of Taoist/Buddhist temples,
or even big empty lots in front of houses in rural areas. Films shown at these
exhibitions were mostly Japanese topicals, European and American actualities,
slapstick, scenery and occasionally entertaining short fiction.
The first important figure in the history of Taiwan cinema was Takamatsu
Toyojirō. In 1901, at the invitation of Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi, Takamatsu came

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to Taiwan showing films to “enlighten” the native Taiwanese and to entertain
Japanese emigrants. Takamatsu’s first mission was successful. In October 1901, he
showed films depicting the battles of Peking (in the Boxer Rebellion) by the
Eight-Nation Alliance, as well as depictions of the Boer War, to audiences that
included local officials and gentry, in numerous cities throughout Taiwan. Audiences
were quite impressed by scenes of the Peking battles. After the short exhibition tour,
Takamatsu went back to Tokyo to start a career as writer-producer of social satire
films. He also prepared annual exhibition trips to Taiwan. Beginning in January 1904,
Takamatsu came to Taiwan once a year with new film titles, staying a half-year to tour
big cities and small villages. He continued to operate his film exhibition business this
way until 1908. As a colonizer, Takamatsu’s purpose of showing films to Taiwanese
audience was “educational,” therefore, the films he chose either showed the power of
science and progress of (Western) civilization, or scenery, humanities and culture,
primarily of Japan and elsewhere in the world.
Takamatsu Toyojirō’s screenings were especially beneficial and really impressed
the colonial government when, during his 1904 and 1905 trips, he showed films and
slides of battles in the Russo-Japanese War. It was estimated that more than 160,000,
mostly native Taiwanese, viewed the program in the 96 screenings that consisted of
dozens of film titles, mostly about the War. More than ¥15,000 for war relief was
raised for the families of Japanese soldiers fighting, wounded, or killed. These films
continued to be screened the following years at annual concerts, held to benefit the
Women’s Charity Society.
Because of his great contributions, his political ties with Itō Hirobumi and protégé
Gotō Shimpei, the second most powerful man in colonial Taiwan, as well as his
speaking talent (as a professional rakugoka – comic story teller), Takamatsu was
treated as an important figure wherever he went, winning trust from the colonial
government even after Gotō Shimpei left Taiwan.
In 1907, Takamatsu was commissioned by the government-general office to make
a documentary film about the situation under colonial rule. The film, literally titled An
Introduction to the Actual Conditions in Taiwan (Taiwan jikky sh kai), was
considered the first film in Taiwan cinema history. It was shown at the 1907 Meiji
Industrial Exposition in Ueno Park, Tokyo. He then toured the film throughout Japan
for seven months. Takamatsu’s success with An Introduction prompted his decision
about taking his family with him in 1908 to live in Taiwan.
His company, Taiwan D jinsha, continued to make films, mostly commissioned
by various departments in the government. Thus, Takamatsu became the first and only

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film producer in Taiwan during the first two decades of Japanese colonial rule. After
1908, his attention turned more toward building and running theaters in Taiwan. In
1909, he was also in the business of bringing famous Japanese troupes to perform in
its theater chain, while also establishing its own theater troupes to perform magic
shows or “Taiwan Drama.” Takamatsu’s entertainment business reached its peak in
1911. The ten or more theaters he owned and managed in Taiwan formed its first
theater chain, allowing Takamatsu to sign distribution deals with Japanese, European,
and American film companies. In 1912, Takamatsu further expanded his business into
real estate and public transportation.
However, Takamatsu was not a good manager. Two or three years after he built his
empire, his businesses were already in serious debt. To make things worse practically,
Takamatsu would never give up his goal to become a congressman, so he could have
power to revise laws for the benefit of laborers. Takamatsu’s three failed political
attempts running for congress in his hometown, Fukushima, eventually cost him a
great fortune. Finally, Takamatsu was forced to sell most of his businesses in Taiwan
and return to Tokyo in 1917. He produced mostly “educational” independent films,
thus making him an important figure in the early period of Japanese Cinema.
At the same time that Takamatsu was getting involved in activities further and
further away from the making and screening of films meant to “enlighten” native
Taiwanese, trying the possible uses of film for non-entertainment purposes was
delegated by the government-general office to the Taiwan Education Society (TES),
an administration-based organization that executed assignments for the Ministry of
Educational Affairs. The TES established its own motion pictures unit in 1914, as part
of its popular education section. Educational films were purchased and, beginning in
1915, screenings were held quite often in major cities, as well as in remote locations
throughout Taiwan and its offshore islands. In 1916, there were 39 screenings with an
audience of 24,000. By 1917, the number of screenings had increased to 52, with a
total audience of 96,000.
Originally, the TES was only able to screen educational and propaganda films to
students and their parents, teachers, as well as the general public. Even though most
of the titles shown by the TES in the 1910s were essentially educational, some of
them also promoted patriotism toward the emperor and Imperial Japan. This was
actually one of the important functions of the TES, and its mission of non-fiction
filmmaking and screening in Taiwan during the colonial rule. The main purpose of
films, such as the one about Emperor Taishō’s Accession Ceremony, was for school
children “to respect the Imperial Family, and to increase understanding of national
polity.”

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Perhaps by default rather than by design, when Takamatsu Toyojirō left Taiwan in
1917, the TES was forced to hire a cameraman, Hagiya Kenzō, and make its own
films. Closely analyzing the films made between 1917 and 1937, one finds that the
TES’s role gradually changed from promoting social education to becoming a
propaganda organ for various departments in the colonial government. It clearly
indicates that the exploitation of film by the colonial government and its affiliated
organizations was, in fact, primarily for political and propagandistic purposes, rather
than education.
Moviegoing became a popular entertainment in 1915 when two cinemas in Taipei,
Niitakakan and Y
oshinokan, competed to become the outlet for two major Japanese
film companies, Tenkatsu (Tennenshoku katsud shashin/Natural Color Motion
Pictures) and Nikkatsu (Nippon katsud shashin/Japan Motion Pictures). In effect,
competition between the two cinemas in Taipei was an extension of a vigorous battle
between the rival studios in homeland Japan. Unlike other businesses in Taiwan, there
was no sign of a recession in film exhibition. At the time, European and American
action-adventure films were favored by male audiences, while Japanese comedies
were favored by female viewers. The burgeoning film exhibition business prompted
the building of new, better-equipped cinemas, while older, dated theaters were quickly
being eliminated. By 1925, there were three cinemas catering to the different tastes of
Japanese audiences - Shinsekaikan (New World Cinema) and Sekaikan (World
Cinema) screened films from Nikkatsu, Shochiku, and America’s United Artists, while
Y
oshinokan showed Japanese productions from Teikoku Kinema Studio (Empire Film
Studio) and T a Kinema (East Asia Film). Native Taiwanese frequented Taiwan
Kinema-kan (Taiwan Cinema) in the Dadaocheng/Daitōtei district north of central
Taipei that exhibited films from Universal Pictures in Hollywood.
At that time, the Taiwan audience was attracted to theaters not only for the films
that were being shown, but also for specific “benshi,” narrators who sat or stood on
stage next to the screen providing live narration, sound effects, and sometimes even
commenting on the silent films. All movie houses, and theaters showing films, had
their own signature benshi, whose style and technique would sometimes affect
box-office. In view of the influential power of benshi, the colonial government began
issuing licenses for benshi in 1927, to control their remarks and behavior. Although
the majority of benshi were Japanese, there were also a few famous Taiwanese benshi
in theaters across Taiwan.
The 1920s was a relatively free, peaceful and prosperous period in the 50-year
colonial rule. Native Taiwanese became impatient at the six-month to two-year time
lag of films between their premieres in Japan, and the time they were finally shown in

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Taiwan. They were also envious of the Koreans, who were able to produce their own
films. The first narrative film shot on Taiwan soil was an independent Japanese short
feature, Buddha’s Pupils (1924), directed by Edward (Eddie) Kinshi Tanaka of Tanaka
Picture Corporation in Tokyo. The local actor Liu Xiyang, who played a bit part in
Buddha’s Pupils, decided to leave his bank job and become an actor/writer/director,
thus making him the first native Taiwanese to become a professional filmmaker in
Taiwan.
In April 1925, Liu and his Japanese friend Kishimoto Satoru, another bank clerk,
launched a campaign to raise funds from businessmen in the Dadaocheng area, a
predominantly Taiwanese commercial center. After earning major financial backing
from a member of a wealthy family, as well as support from other wealthy
businessmen, children of prominent families, artists, and young Taiwanese men and
women interested in filmmaking, Liu and Kishimoto established the Taiwan Cinema
Study Association in May 1925. Among the 34 founding members of the Association,
20 joined in the preproduction and production of the first narrative film ever produced
by Taiwanese, Whose Fault Is It?, shot by Li Shu, written by Liu, and codirected by
Liu, Zhang Sunqu and Huang Letian, two actors in the film. The seven-reel
action-romance, publicized as a “pure Taiwan-made film,” premiered in mid-
September 1925 at Eraku-za in Dadaocheng. However, the film failed at the box
office, causing the collapse of the Association.
Despite the failure of Whose Fault Is It?, some members of the Taiwan Cinema
Study Association continued pursuing their film dream. Li Shu, the only native
Taiwanese cinematographer during Japanese rule, founded Baida Film Productions in
1929, following his successful making of films for rensageki, in which film
screenings were interpolated between live performances of Taiwanese Opera. Director
Zhang Sunqu’s Blood Stains, an action-romance, his second feature film as director,
premiered in early 1930 and was very successful. However, notwithstanding this
success, Baida was not capable of making another film, due to an unsupportive
government policy, popularity of imported Chinese films from Shanghai, and most
importantly, no infrastructure (sustainable capital investment, professional actors and
technicians, as well as good scripts) to support the continued output of films.
Chinese films from Shanghai started to appear in Taiwan in October 1924.
Second-hand prints of Shanghai’s The Widow Wants to Remarry (Dan Duyu, 1923)
were brought back from the Philippines by a Tainan native who had emigrated to
Luzon to run a business. It was shown in Tainan, Taipei, and a number of other cities.
This film and second-hand prints of other Chinese titles coming through Southeast
Asia did not attract much attention in Taiwan, however. When Li Shu and other local

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distributors started to import Chinese films directly from Shanghai in 1925, most of
them did not do well commercially. The first films from Shanghai that attracted large
Taiwanese audiences were The Cave of the Spider Spirit (Dan Duyu, 1927), Meng
Jiangnu (Shao Zuiwen and Qiu Qixiang, 1926), and other fantasy films, which caused
an importing frenzy for similar films from Shanghai. The Chinese fever subsided in
1928, when audiences were deterred by the many impostures (Japanese and other
foreign films misrepresented as Chinese films), resulting in subsequent genuine
Chinese films being hurt commercially. However, in 1930, after the first episode of
The Burning of the Red Temple (Zhang Shichuan, 1928) was shown, creating
sensational mass fervor about the drama series and other martial arts wuxia films from
Shanghai, there was almost no room left for domestic film productions in the market.
The Japanese colonial government had always been wary of Taiwan’s ties with
China under Nationalist rule. In order to discount the influence of Chinese films from
Shanghai, it implemented various policies, tightened censorship, and set up trade
barriers to hinder the importation of such films, but to no avail. Films from China
were finally banned outright by the Government-General Office in 1937, after
Imperial Japan engaged in the “declared” war with the Nationalist government.
Film censorship began in the mid-1910s, administered by local policemen before
and during screenings. Attention was paid to violence, adultery, detailed descriptions
of crimes, and scenes that might induce misdeeds. The lack of unified inspection
standards, as well as the inconvenience caused by the individual, separate inspection
each film had to go through before screening in every local area, finally forced the
colonial government to implement an island-wide Motion Pictures Film Inspection
Rule in 1926.
In the mid-1930s, following the League of Nations’ condemnation of the invasion
of Manchuria by Japan, the Japanese government tightened its control over film
distribution and exportation. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937,
Chinese films were banned from importation and prohibited from showing in theaters.
As militarism gained popularity among the general public, attempts to control the film
industry by the military became obvious. The Imperial Diet passed the Film Law in
1939, which not only required film scripts to be censored before production and films
inspected before distribution, but also regulated ownership of movie theaters, length
of each screening, and implemented an examination and registration system to
manage talent working in the film industry. Even though the Film Law was not
officially implemented in Taiwan, parts of it were written into the newly drafted
Regulations of the Handling Motion Pictures Film Inspection Rule in 1939.

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Film-related popular journals began to appear in 1929, signifying the existence of
a steady audience for films. The emergence of talkie films was the sensation at the
time. In August 1929 live bands were replaced by Western Electric amplifier and
recording systems at several movie theaters in Taipei. Other theaters mixed
performances of live bands with prerecorded music during film screenings. In
September 1929, Makino Film Productions’ sound-on-disc system for talkies made its
debut in Y
oshinokan Theater with a “wild animal film” and a couple of period dramas,
including Return Bridge/Modo hashi (Makino Masahiro, 1929). By mid-1930,
Shinsekaikan, the best Taipei cinema, dedicated to showing European and American
films, began all talkie screenings using the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system. The
first sound films exhibited there were Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 (David Butler,
1929), a musical made specifically for the system, and a comedy short, Marching On
(Marcel Silver, 1929).
As sound films gradually gained popularity, benshi started to disappear in cinemas
catering to Japanese audiences. However, benshi in movie theaters for Taiwanese
audience held onto their jobs until the end of Japanese rule in 1945, and some even
worked well into the 1950s. This was mainly due to the unfamiliarity of Taiwanese
audiences with the languages used in most films, whether Japanese, Chinese
Mandarin, English, or any other European languages.
Cine-clubs began in Europe in the mid-1920s. Soon in Taiwan, many colonial
government officials and their dependents, such as the wife of Gotō Fumio, former
secretary general of the Government-General Office, and Watanabe Kenosuke, section
chief of salt and camphor, were enthusiastically using small-gauge (i.e., 17.5mm,
16mm, 9.5mm, and 8mm) amateur movie cameras to shoot their own home movies
and art films. Among them, the 9.5mm Pathé Baby camera was particularly popular in
Taiwan. In late 1928, a cine-club, Don Club, was founded in Taipei for sharing
experiences and showing each others’ works. A preview of films made by its members
was held for the first time in early October at the residence of a member. Three
months later, Don Club held a joint exhibition with another cine-club, Hēbī Kinema,
in an office in the city center. The number of such amateur filmmaker must have been
substantial, as ads from photography shops selling Pathé Baby and other small-gauge
movie cameras, as well as developing reversal film, appeared constantly in the
newspaper. An event in July 1930 also attested to the popularity of amateur
filmmaking at the time. A joint military exercise involving tanks was held in Taipei.
After the exercise, tanks were driven through the center of the city specifically for
people to film with their Pathé Baby and other amateur cameras. Kōyōkai and
Lumière Club were the two most active cine-clubs in 1934. Kōyōkai devoted itself to

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the study of Pathé 9.5mm filmmaking techniques, and was the only Taiwan amateur
cine-club to join the All Japan Pathé Cine Association. Because of its achievements,
the club was commissioned by Taiwan Military Headquarters to make a 9.5mm
documentary film, Taiwan Special Exercises. Among all Taiwanese amateur
filmmakers in the 1930s, Deng Nanguang, a professional photographer who had
developed his skills in Tokyo, was the most prolific, winning many awards in Japan.
Another cineaste movement exploded on the island in 1931 with the founding of
the Taipei (Taihoku) Cinema League by a group of high school, college, and
university faculty and students, as well as staff from various departments in the
Government-General Office. Working with local film distributors and cinemas, the
League held monthly screenings of quality foreign films, mostly from Hollywood and
Europe, and was instrumental in promoting film art in colonial Taiwan. Membership
expanded rather quickly in one year, from 50 in late 1931, to more than 1,000 in late
1932. Similar film clubs were formed by cinephiles in other major cities, including
Taichung (Taichu), Keelung (Kiryū), Pingdong, Tainan, and Hsinchu (Shinchiku). In
1935, an island-wide cinema study organization, the All Taiwan Film Research
Association (Zen Taiwan eiga kenkyū kai) was formed. It held a film culture
exposition, inviting famous Japanese film critics Iwasaki Akira and Kishi Matsuo to
hold conferences and give speeches in Taiwan. Following the trend, local branches of
All Taiwan Film Research Association, such as the Kaohsiung (Takao) Cinema
League, were formed after 1935. The cinema league movement lasted for six years,
until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Among all the leagues, only
Taipei and Kaohsiung Cinema Leagues published their own journals. The editors,
most of the writers, and even members of these cinema leagues, were Japanese
intellectuals who loved to watch and talk about European and American quality (art)
films. However, they did not get involved in any filmmaking activities.
Efforts to make narrative films in Taiwan, though sporadic, did continue, despite
the difficult environment. There were several Japanese narrative films made in Taiwan
before 1937. In 1925, the motion pictures department of Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shimp
(Tainichi, or Taiwan Daily News) produced God Is Merciless, thought to be the first
Taiwanese feature made by local Japanese and Taiwanese talent. (The director is said
to have been Fukuhara Masao, staff cameraman in the newspaper’s filmmaking
department.) In 1927, the Japanese film company Nikkatsu sent its new directors,
Tasaka Tomotaka and Mizoguchi Kenji, to Taiwan to make Hero of Alishan, which
imitated Famous Players-Lasky’s 1925 film, The V
anishing American.
Five years later, with full cooperation and support from the colonial government,
Goh , the Righteous Man/Gijin goh /Y
iren wu feng (1932) was made by the Taiwan

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Film Production Office (TFPO, Taiwan eiga seisakusho), part of Japan Gōdō News
Agency’s Film Department. Andō Tarō, one of the two directors, was born and
educated in Taiwan until he went to study in Meiji University and worked as assistant
director in T a Kinema (East Asia Films), while Chiba Yasuki, the other director, was
a new director at Fukoku Katsud Shashin (Rich Country Motion Pictures). Goh , the
Righteous Man was in essence a film that followed the policy of, and received
assistance from, the colonial government in its portrayal of Gohō (Wu Feng) as a man
who sacrificed himself to change the headhunting customs of the Tsou Aborigines
living on Mt. Alishan. After the film was finished, the same production team made a
narrative propaganda film, Shining Glory/Eik ni kagayaku, for the Ministry of
Culture and Education (Bunky Kyoku).
Following completion of the two films, Chiba Yasuki and his TFPO team made
Strange Gentleman/Kai shinshi/Guai shenshi, a detective genre film commissioned by
Liangyu Films, distributor of the first six episodes of a popular wuxia film series, The
Burning of the Red Temple. Despite the big success of Strange Gentleman, the TFPO
did not benefit and was in a difficult financial situation. It was not able to continue its
Taiwan Marches and Tei Seik /Zheng Chenggong projects, and was disbanded after
finding no sustaining capital investments, during the Great Depression. Taiwan Film
Production Office’s case was even more serious than that of Baida Film Productions,
because even with the successes of both Goh , the Righteous Man, which was
supported by the colonial government and shown throughout Taiwan to students and
the general public, and Strange Gentleman, a successful commercial film, the TFPO
could not attract capital investment, which clearly indicated that it was impossible to
establish a self-sustaining film industry in Taiwan.
After the closing of the TFPO, Chiba Yasuki went back to Japan and became a
freelance director, who signed a special contract with Nikkatsu and made more than
30 films for the studio before 1940. Andō Tarō stayed on in Taiwan. He codirected the
critically acclaimed box-office winner, Spring Breeze/W
ang chunfeng (Andō Tarō and
Huang Liangmeng, 1938), produced by Taiwan First Film Productions, established by
Wu Xiyang (Go Suzuyō) when he was the representative of First Theater (Daiichi
Gekij ) and Huang Liangmeng was the manager. Following the completion of Spring
Breeze, Andō and Taiwan First Film Productions went on to make Honorable Military
Porter/Homare no gunpu (1938). Unfortunately, Wu did not pursue a film production
career after the record-breaking success of Spring Breeze. Instead, he went back to
manage the family business in public transportation. Without Wu’s financial support,
and with the flames of war spreading in Mainland China, Andō could no longer find
any feature film to direct.

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The technology of sound film recording did not reach Taiwan until 1934, and the
first Taiwanese-produced all-talkie feature film, Spring Breeze, appeared as late as
1937. In 1934, commissioned by the Taiwan Military Headquarters and the Taiwan
Government-General Office, which provided ¥15,000, Nippon Eiga’s Talkie News
Productions brought a crew to Taiwan to make a film introducing the conditions in
Taiwan, as well as to propagate the concept of air defense to audiences in Taiwan and
Japan. The film, All Taiwan/ ru Taiwan (1934), was shown throughout Taiwan in late
1934. All Taiwan can be seen as an example of a new strategy developed by the
Government-General Office in the mid-1930s. Rather than using local filmmakers or
production companies, the colonial government would commission major studios in
Japan to make fiction and non-fiction films to propagate its policies. This strategy
may be attributed to the complicated technology involved in making sound films, and
to developments in international politics since 1934, following the League of Nations’
condemnation of Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. The direction of filmmaking and
attitudes toward film in Taiwan was strongly affected.
Alas, Shisangan (1936), the first inland Japanese-made fiction sound film in
Taiwan, was produced by the Taiwan Production Office of Kokusui Sound Film
Productions, a company represented by Viscount Itakura. Alas Shisangan is an
informative film about how a female teacher rehabilitates a juvenile delinquent, with
the help of the boy’s elder sister. Written by Kitabatake Genei, a Ministry of Culture
and Education official, the film was shown not only in schools, but in regular cinemas
across Taiwan. Around the same time, Kitabatake produced another narrative
moralistic film, National Anthem Boy/Kimigayo sh nen (1936). Based on a true story
in which a dying boy, trapped in wreckage after the 1935 earthquake, sang the
national anthem of Imperial Japan until he died, the film is yet another “patriotic film”
used in schools and for social education.
Tropical Songs/Nangoku no uta (1936), called a “southward development film” at
the time, was a Nikkatsu film commissioned by sugar companies. It tells a romantic
story of a Japanese technician and his Taiwanese girlfriend, both dedicated to the
development of the southern territory of the Empire - Taiwan. The director, Shudō
Toshihisa, was known for his previous non-fiction film, Eight Thousand Kilometers of
National Defense/Kokub hachisen kiro, a “northward development film” about the
development of Manchuria. Therefore, it was definitely another “national policy film,”
even though the colonial government in Taiwan did not provide any money.
In the same vein, Spring Breeze, the entertaining drama made under the pretext of
“promoting harmony between the Japanese and Taiwanese” and “breaking bad
(Taiwanese) customs,” was also a film advocating national policy. In addition,

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Honorable Military Porter, encouraging Taiwanese to support the war in China by
joining the ranks of military porters, was certainly an outright “national policy film.”
Similarly, films made by the TES after 1934 showed a tendency towards the
promotion of patriotism, militarism, and the Japanization of Taiwan. Since most of the
population in colonial Taiwan was of Chinese descent, the need to transform and
assimilate Taiwanese into “Japanese” loyal to the emperor seemed an urgent mission
to the government, in view of the inevitable war with China. Therefore, a movement
to arouse the “national spirit” was essential. On 9 December 1933, Governor-General
Nakagawa Kenzō issued an official proclamation declaring that the national spirit in
Taiwan needed to be aroused much more than in homeland Japan, since the island of
Taiwan was in a key position as the southern gate of the Empire. He re-invigorated the
campaign for a “national language,” calling for the Japanese language to be used
frequently by the local population, even in their homes, so that the objective of
assimilation (d ka) could be achieved. By this time, arousing the national spirit, and
the clearly expressed idea of national policy, had been written into the main objectives
of each social education organization. With the approaching war with China, it was
obvious that through these means the colonial government hoped to gradually
assimilate the Taiwanese, breaking their emotional, psychological, and cultural ties
with mainland China.
When full-fledged war with Nationalist China broke out in July 1937, a
Provisional Ministry of Information was quickly set up in the Government-General
Office to control media. Measures taken included restricting the length of films shown
in theaters, as well as prohibiting the importation of all foreign films, with the
exception of newsreels, thus seriously disrupting the distribution and exhibition
business. Japanese-owned theaters and companies in the distribution business were
forced to form unified co-ops under the auspices of the Provisional Ministry of
Information.
During this period, newsreels featuring battles with China began to pour into
Taiwan. Starting in late August, newsreels about the war in China were regularly
shown to sold-out weekend audiences at the Taipei City Public Auditorium. Film
exhibition was held by a non-profit organization, the Taipei City Community Service
Grant Committee (Taipei shakai jigy josei kai). The sources for newsreels were
films produced by Japanese news organizations, such as Osaka Mainichi Shimbun,
and its competitor Asahi Shimbun, as well as newsreels and cartoons from Fox and
Paramount. During October 1937, 12,000 viewers were said to have attended
newsreel screenings in Taipei daily. The enthusiasm for newsreels about war
prompted theater operators to get on the bandwagon. In November, the first

13
newsreel-only theater opened in Taipei. World Newsreel Theater signed contracts with
more than seven newsreel production companies in Taiwan and Japan to show their
films.
The Taiwan Education Society also began producing films relating to the frontline
and the home base. It purchased newsreels and other war-related documentaries made
by Tainichi, Osaka Mainich Shimbun, and Y
omiuri Shimbun, loaning them to local
governments for touring exhibitions in rural Taiwan. Eventually, the TES would send
its own cameramen to the battlefields, primarily in Southern China, to cover the
situation there.
On 15 August 1937, the Government-General Office formally announced that
Taiwan was in a state of war. Subsequently, Tainichi increased the number of
personnel in its newsreel department. It sent two teams consisting of a reporter and
cameraman to the battlefield, one to Northern China, the other to Southern China.
In 1938, the colonial government began implementing a k minka (Japanization)
policy to assimilate native Taiwanese as Japanese subjects. All forms of Taiwanese
entertainment were prohibited in rural areas, replaced by screenings of “national
policy films.” The use of the native Taiwanese language by benshi in movie theaters
was banned as well. However, prohibitions on the importation and screening of
Western countries’ films were temporarily lifted, causing a sudden boom in the film
exhibition business.
Before and after the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, the
Government-General Office, perhaps stimulated by the unexpected popular
zealousness about the Japanese victories over Chinese, American, and British forces,
started to coproduce bigger budget “national policy films.” These films were used for
propagating and winning support for the “southward advance” policy, “Taiwanese
volunteer soldier” system, and for recruitment of a “Takasago volunteer army.” Clan
of the Sea/Umi no g zoku (Arai Ryōhei, 1942), made by Nikkatsu’s Kyoto studio,
depicted the victory of the Taiwan Plains Aborigines in their war against Dutch
“invaders” in the 17th
century, with help from Japanese samurai. It was partially
filmed in Taiwan. The colonial government’s support of this historical epic was aimed
at advocating the concept of a so-called “East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere,” as part of
the “southward advance” policy of the Imperial government.
Sayon’s Bell/Sayon no kane (Shimizu Hiroshi, 1943), a coproduction of the
Taiwan Government-General Office, Manchurian Film Association (Man’ei), and
Shochiku Company, was based on a true story in which a young Aborigine girl died
crossing rapids one stormy night. She was carrying the luggage of her school

14
teacher-policeman, to help send him to fight on the battlefield. The film was part of a
campaign promoted by the colonial government to commemorate and celebrate her
“patriotic” deed. The motivation behind the campaign was, once again, to arouse
aspirations in Taiwanese and Aborigines to join the “volunteer army” and fight for the
emperor.
Film policy in the last stages of Japanese colonial rule moved toward total state
control of production, distribution, and exhibition, following the policy of the
Imperial government. When the National Mobilization Law (Kokka s d in h ) was
passed by the Imperial Diet in April 1938, the Taiwan Government-General Office
began to require the establishment of a unifying organization in each trade initially,
and an association later, to collectively procure and sell commodities. Under pressure
from such state control, distributors were the first in the film industry to establish a
trade association in 1940, followed by tour exhibitors, and owners of stage theaters
and cinemas. Local non-profit film organizations were the last to be controlled by the
colonial government.
The colonial government established the Taiwan Film Association (Taiwan eiga
ky kai, or Tai’ei) in September 1941. Tai’ei was under the direction of the Provisional
Ministry of Information. Membership in Tai’ei was comprised of local film
organizations in the jurisdiction of each and every local government. Taiwan Film
Association, in effect, controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of all
non-fiction films on the island. Tai’ei became the monitoring and coordinating
organization for all screenings at the local level. With every local film organization
under its control, the Ministry of Information, thus, was able to assert island-wide
control.
In September 1942, after taking over the motion pictures departments in both
Taiwan Education Society and Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shimp , Tai’ei became the only
organization in Taiwan capable of producing non-fiction films. It set up a film studio
that included directing, cinematography, sound recording, editing, and film projection
departments, as well as a laboratory that was also able to create titles and special
effects. In addition to the film staff previously working at the TES and Tainichi, Tai’ei
recruited two directors from homeland Japan. They started regularly turning out
newsreels and documentaries about events on the island as well as special issues on
the battlefield situation. However, as the Asia-Pacific phase of World War II dragged
on, with the constant bombardment of Taiwan by Allied bombers, the quantity of
newsreels and documentaries produced by Tai’ei declined sharply in 1944. Before the
end of the war, filmmaking had completely stopped for nearly a year.

15
In essence, cinema in colonial Taiwan between 1895 and 1945 involved the issue
of colonization. It was colonialistic because indigenous filmmaking was not
encouraged, and the political utilization of film exhibition by the native intelligentsia
was suppressed. It was colonialistic, too, because the colonial government used film
as a tool to “assimilate” and even “Japanize” the Taiwanese and Aborigines. In
conjunction with other practices, film was also used by the Japanese colonizer to
intimidate indigenous tribes living in the deep mountains, to persuade them to stop
fighting against Japanese (“modern”) rule, and to introduce “better” ways of living.
Later on, documentary films and newsreels (together called “cultural films”) were
used by the colonial government to help implement “Japanization” (or
“Imperialization”). Under this policy, Taiwanese (including the indigenous) were
coerced to become “Japanese” in order to fight (and die) for the emperor, who
represented Imperial Japan.
There were hardly any films made by local filmmakers for the Taiwanese
audience. (Only three films qualified as native productions, made for the local
audience. However, two of them failed miserably due to their poor technical
capabilities.) In fact, very few (less than 16) feature films were ever made during the
50-year colonial period. Most of these were actually written, directed, and produced
by Japanese, who were predominantly from mainland Japan. The number of films was
meager, especially when compared with the films of Korea, Japan’s other colony, or
from Manchuria during the same period.
It was estimated that 140-150 feature films were made in Korea between 1910 and
1945. However, even if one counts from 1923, the year Korean film production
became active, until 1939, when the Japanese government began to oppress the film
industry, there were still 128 films made, mostly by Korean filmmakers. In Manchuria,
more than 100 feature films were made by Man’ei between 1938 and 1945, among
them, almost half were directed by Chinese directors.
The early years of the Showa Era, between 1925 and 1937, was the first golden
age of film production and exhibition in Taiwan. The Second Sino-Japanese War
abruptly ended the “good old days” of cinema in Taiwan. From then on, until the end
of World War II, Taiwan cinema was always used only in the service of Imperial
Japan. However, film and politics also mixed in Taiwan after the war, until the
emergence of “Taiwan New Cinema” in the 1980s.

16
II. Taiwan Cinema Under the KMT Rule
The Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies on 14 August 1945. After that, the
Republic of China (ROC), controlled by the Nationalist (Kuomintang or KMT)
government, became the ruler of Taiwan. The KMT established a Taiwan Provincial
Administrative Executive Office (TPAEO) and Taiwan Garrison Command, sending
the first officers to take over Taiwan in September. Before their arrival, movie theaters
enjoyed a state of freedom showing Japanese, European, and American films
imported during the colonial period as well as Chinese films that were previously
banned by the Japanese. Actually, the TPAEO did not promulgate its film inspection
rules until the end of that year, therefore, it allowed all films to be exhibited before the
implementation of the regulations. The TPAEO’s policy toward films after 1946 was
mainly to control films from the Axis countries - Japan, Germany, and Italy - as well
as to censor films from China and the West.
The first period of postwar Taiwan cinema is marked by the slow recovery of film
distribution and exhibition, and relatively inactive domestic film production. The
Taiwan Film Association (Tai’ei) was taken over on 20 October 1945 by Bai Ke and
other members of the Propaganda Committee of the TPAEO. Bai kept a handful of
Taiwanese employees of Tai’ei, and seven Japanese technicians, to make a filmed
records of the arrival of Chief Executive Chen Yi at Songshan Air Base, the Japanese
surrender ceremony held in the Taipei City Public Auditorium (later renamed Taipei
Zhongshan Hall) on 25 October, and the public celebration of Taiwan’s “retrocession”
to the Chinese ROC government. Tai’ei was renamed Taiwan Film Studio (Taiwan
dianying sheying chang), under the Propaganda Committee of the TPAEO, with Bai
Ke as its first director. It would become one of the three major government-affiliated
studios during the Nationalist rule, with making newsreels and documentaries as its
principal mission, just like Tai’ei did.
In mid-1946, Taiwan Film Studio (TFS) was moved to a more spacious location in
center Taipei. It was equipped with a new soundstage, laboratory, screening room, and
offices. The TPAEO’s film inspection was also conducted there. The TFS became the
first organization capable of producing films after the war. Before the outbreak of the
“228 Incident” in February 1947, the TFS had turned out seven editions of newsreels
and four episodes of a documentary film, Taiwan Today/Jinri Taiwan (1946).
In November 1945, a dozen Taiwanese cultural elite established the first major
Taiwan film company after the war, Taiwan Movies and Drama Company, Ltd.
(TMDC)/Taiwan dianying xiju gufen youxian gongsi. The new company was founded
upon the base of the original Taiwan Movies and Drama Distribution Company

17
(Taiwan eiga engeki haikyū kaisha), an organization established by the colonial
government during the last stage in its rule, for the purpose of controlling distribution
and exhibition of films, and theatrical performances, throughout Taiwan. The
management of the TMDC was already familiar with film distribution, and quickly
acquired distribution rights to many current Hollywood films and Chinese films from
Shanghai. However, many of those in the TMDC management were implicated in the
“228 Incident,” causing the TPAEO to confiscate the company, which was auctioned
off and bought by a newspaper publisher the following year. Nonetheless, the
company was soon disbanded. Before 1949, besides the TMDC, there were several
smaller film distributors/theater operators, who showed old Chinese films, or were
able to acquire recent American films.
Mandarin-language films from Hong Kong and Shanghai quickly replaced films
from Japanese-occupied Shanghai and Man’ei that were popular in the early postwar
era. Guotai Motion Pictures from Shanghai was the first Chinese company to extend
its distribution arm into Taiwan in 1947. Its representative, Hsu Hsin-fu (Xu Xinfu),
soon became distributor for other Shanghai film companies as well. At the time, Great
China (Dazhonghua) Film Company from Hong Kong was also distributing
Mandarin-language films from Hong Kong and Shanghai. In 1948, quality films from
other Shanghai film studios became popular in Taiwan as well, and were able to
compete with American films that dominated the Taiwan market since the end of
World War II.
With An All-Consuming Love/Chang xiangxi (He Zhaozhang, 1947) shooting
outdoor scenes on the banks of the Tamsui River and other locations, Great China
became the first production company to film on location in Taiwan following the war.
Soon, Girl Behind a Mask/Jiamian nulang (Fang Peilin, 1947) from Guotai Motion
Pictures also filmed on location. Afterward, several unsuccessful attempts were made
by film producers from Shanghai to shoot films in Taiwan.
More than 20 years after native Taiwanese He Feiguang went to China in the
1920s and became a film director, he returned to make The Hualian Port/
Hualiangang (1948) for China Northwest Films, shot totally in Taiwan on location
and in studio. Postproduction was done in Shanghai. The romance depicts a tragic
love story, in which a young Aborigine girl sacrificed herself to help eliminating the
gap between her tribe and the Han Chinese, who brought modern medicine to the
mountainous people. The film was made after the “228 Incident,” probably with the
intention to soothe the conflict between native Taiwanese and Mainlanders. The
storyline of The Hualian Port is very similar to Hero of Alishan (1927), in which a
young male Tsou Aborigine sacrificed himself to awaken the tribal spirit to stop his

18
tribe from falling into a bloody struggle with the Japanese, who came to help educate
Tsou children and develop the area. The similar colonialism revealed in both films
indicated that Nationalist rule after the war was not essentially different from
Japanese colonial rule.
Guotai Motion Pictures came from Nationalist-held Shanghai to shoot Storm Over
Alishan Mountain/Alishan fengyun (Chang Cheh and Chang Ying, written by Chang
Cheh) retold the story of Wu Feng, who sacrificed himself to eliminate the practice of
decapitation by the Tsou Aborigine, in effect repeating the effort made by the Japanese
filmmakers of Goh , the Righteous Man (1932), the earlier film which helped the
Japanese colonial government consolidate its legitimacy to rule and “modernize” the
lives of indigenous people. As Storm Over Alishan Mountain was an independent
production, it further indicates that the prejudice against the Aborigines was in the
mind of not only government officials, but also the general Han Chinese population,
which shows that colonialism, in essence, was political, as well as cultural. (The same
story was once again remade in 1962, in color, No Greater Love/Wu feng, produced
by Taiwan Film Studio, owned and operated by the Taiwan Provincial Government.)
While Storm Over Alishan Mountain was shooting on location, Shanghai fell to
the Chinese Communists. The actors and crew, including the two directors, were
stranded in Taiwan. They managed to complete the film the following year, thus
making it the first narrative feature film made in Taiwan after the Nationalist’s
Republic of China relocated there.
Two million refugees, including Chang Kai-shek, his military forces and their
dependents, the Nationalist government, as well as many businessmen fled to Taiwan
in 1949 after the Communist Party of China (CPC) won the Civil War. The exodus
also brought the government-affiliated film studios, including their equipment and
personnel, to Taiwan. Most private film companies and independent filmmakers,
however, did not follow the Nationalist government. Instead, the majority of those
who fled from Mainland China went to Hong Kong, under British colonial rule.
The second period of postwar Taiwan cinema, roughly from 1950 to the
mid-1960s, can be characterized as that of a “national” cinema, under the political
control of the Nationalist Party. Chinese Communist control over media, especially
film, was regarded by the KMT government as the main reason for its losing support
of the Chinese people in the Civil War. Therefore, after it settled in Taiwan, the
Nationalist Party, led by Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, took control of
the film studios and started to produce anti-communist propagandistic narrative and
non-fiction films.

19
By 1950, there were three government-affiliated film studios: Taiwan Film Studio,
China Film Studio (CFS), and Agricultural Education Film Studio (AEFS). The KMT
originally planned to merge them into one big studio, without success. Therefore, after
internal coordination and integration by the KMT, each studio was designated a
mission. The CFS, controlled by the military, was asked to make newsreels,
documentaries, and military education films. The TFS, owned and operated by the
Taiwan Provincial Government, was to make social education films, newsreels, and
documentaries. As for the KMT’s AEFS, its mission was to make anti-communist
narrative features.
The Agricultural Education Film Studio was established by the Farmers Bank of
China in 1943 under the mandate of the Ministry of Agriculture in China. In 1948,
when the AEFS relocated to Taiwan, a soundstage was built in Taichung, a city in
central Taiwan, to house its new equipment from the United States. In 1950, Chiang
Ching-kuo, chief of the Bureau of General Political Warfare in the Ministry of
National Defense, was assigned a concurrent post as president of the AEFS. He
appointed many of his security officers to important AEFS positions. The AEFS’s
anti- communist propaganda features, however, could not find any theaters for
exhibition because most movie theaters had contracts with Hollywood film
distributors. Moreover, due to the lack of funds recovered from already distributed
films, which had a low box-office, the AEFS could no longer afford to make any
feature films after 1953. In view of this situation, Chiang Kai-shek, the president of
the ROC and the KMT director-general, ordered the merger of the AEFS and Taiwan
Motion Picture Corporation (TMPC), a theater chain owned by the KMT, hoping that
the new organization could produce enough films for its own theaters, and that
box-office revenue would be enough to fund further productions. In September 1954,
the two organizations merged to become Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC).
The Nationalist government delegated the CMPC’s ownership to the KMT Party.
Early narrative films made by the AEFS and the CMPC were clearly propaganda,
either exposing the CCP’s violent Communist rule on the Mainland and its conspiracy
to take over Taiwan, or promoting the KMT’s benevolent rule and the progress in
Taiwan after 1949. Most of these films were poorly made, attracting very few
domestic viewers. Such propagandistic films were banned in Southeast Asia, and
could not be distributed in the market. Filmmaking technique in these films was
substandard, which could be attributed to the fact that most of the professional
technicians and creative talent did not move to Taiwan with the Nationalist
government in 1949. Some estimated that out of the 20 percent of craft and creative
people in the Chinese film industry who had fled the Mainland, only 5 percent came

20
to Taiwan, with the rest (15%) working in Hong Kong. (In the eyes of the KMT, those
who stayed on the Mainland were traitors, and their films banned in Taiwan.) As
Hong Kong received more and higher-skilled film talent, the quality of its Mandarin
films rose and they became more welcomed in Taiwan, particularly by the Mainlander
audience.
Looking at Taiwan purely from a business standpoint, it was too small a market to
sustain a consistently profitable film industry. In the early 1950s, very few films were
able to last more than a week in theaters. A film such as Awakening from a Nightmare
(1951) cost NT$350,000 (US$47,000) to make, but the box-office take was only
one-third of the production budget, thus making film production an extremely risky
business. To resolve such a predicament, Taiwan films needed to find overseas
markets from which they could earn at least two-thirds of their costs.
Moreover, since filmmaking was a sure-loss business, after World War II there
was no independent filmmaking in Taiwan. Government-affiliated studios were the
only ones producing films, and the quantity was not sufficient for the domestic market.
Thus, importation of old and new Mandarin films from Hong Kong became inevitable
by the early 1950s.
Mandarin-language films were not as popular as Cantonese productions in Hong
Kong after 1949, forcing independent Mandarin film companies to value Taiwan as a
major market, like Singapore and the Malay States (British Malaya, later Malaysia
and independent Singapore). The Nationalist government actively courted the
cooperation and support from filmmakers working in the Hong Kong film industry.
When encountering financial distress, many Hong Kong Mandarin film producers,
such as Li Zuyong of Yung Hwa Motion Picture Studios and Zhang Shankun of Great
Wall Film Company, could easily obtain loans from the KMT. Thus, the situation
created an environment for close exchange between Taiwan cinema and Hong Kong
cinema beginning in the early 1950s. From 1951, Taiwan treated Hong Kong
Mandarin films as “national (ROC) productions” (guopian), unrestricted by the quota
system like other foreign films, which enjoyed various aids and rewards from the
Nationalist government, privileges even greater than domestic productions received.
In October 1953, Hong Kong Mandarin filmmakers Wang Yuanlong, Zhang
Shankun, Hu Jinkang, and Yan Youxiang, organized a troupe to entertain troops in
Taiwan, marking the first time an overseas film team paid a visit to Nationalist-ruled
Taiwan. In a couple of years, coproductions between Taiwan and Hong Kong became
frequent. Wong Cheuk-Hon was among the first Hong Kong producers to make a film
in Taiwan. He was instrumental in forcing the KMT to implement a new policy, not

21
charging Hong Kong production companies import or export taxes when bringing in
raw stock from Hong Kong and taking exposed film out of Taiwan.
In 1956, the Hong Kong and Kowloon Filmmakers Free General Association
Limited (renamed the following year as Hong Kong and Kowloon Cinema &
Theatrical Enterprise Free General Association Limited) was established by Wang
Yuanlong and others who had visited Taiwan in 1953. The film circle in Hong Kong
was, thus, divided into segregated left and right camps. The Free Association
represented right-wing (anti-communist) workers in the Hong Kong film business,
and served as a liaison between its members and the ROC government in Taiwan. All
films distributed in Taiwan had to first register with the Association. Through the Free
Association, the KMT was able to impose its control over the Hong Kong Mandarin
film world.
In June 1956, the CMPC began working with Hong Kong film producers,
directors, and actors. Such films as Journey to Kwan Shan (1956, directed by Hong
Kong director Evan Yang/Yi Wen) increased the attractiveness of the CMPC’s
propagandistic films in Taiwan and abroad. The example set by Yung Hwa Studios’
Flying Tigers (1956), which was fully supported by the ROC military authorities, also
attracted many Hong Kong producers to either coproduce films, or shoot on location
in Taiwan during the late 1950s.
In the mid- to late-1950s, both Cathay Organization’s Motion Pictures and
General Investment Co. Ltd. (MP&GI) and Shaw Brothers gradually dominated the
Mandarin film world. The two giants were loyal to the ROC government, thus
strengthening the relationship between Hong Kong Mandarin cinema and Taiwan
cinema, especially in the 1960s. Their fast expansion in overseas markets forced them
to recruit talent from Taiwan, such as Chang Cheh, Pan Lei, and Diana Chang
Chung-Wen, among many others. Even actors from Taiwanese-dialect films, including
Xiao Yanqiu, Bai Lan, You Juan, and Lin Chong, went to Hong Kong to find careers
there. It was estimated that more than 100 Taiwanese were recruited to work in Hong
Kong as directors, writers, producers, assistant directors, cameramen, actors, dubbing
actors, and in publicity.
The first turning point in postwar Taiwan cinema was the emergence of
Taiwanese-dialect film, which, interestingly, was also related to Hong Kong cinema.
Xiamen (Amoy)-dialect films originated in Hong Kong in 1947 from Xinguang Film
Company, founded by two Chinese from the Philippines, who had the overseas
Chinese market in Southeast Asia in mind. Too Late for Reunion (1947), directed by
Cantonese film director But Fu, starring Mandarin film actors Bai Yun and Liu Hung,

22
was successfully released in Southeast Asia, but did not arrive in Taiwan until 1950.
In 1949, after the Chinese Communists founded the PRC, there was a massive
migration of Amoy natives to Hong Kong. Some of them invested in films performed
by Xiamen-dialect and Chuanzhou-dialect Opera troupes, which had also moved their
operations to Hong Kong after 1949. Many of these films, made with the help of
Hong Kong filmmakers, were imported to Taiwan after 1950, posing as
“Taiwanese-dialect film.” By the mid-1950s, such films were quite popular in Taiwan,
which seriously hurt the business of Taiwanese Opera troupes. Therefore, some
owners of the Taiwanese troupes decided to make “genuine” Taiwanese-dialect films.
In 1956, Xue Pinggui and W
ang Baochuan, a Taiwanese Opera film directed by
veteran educational filmmaker Ho Chi-Ming, became a sensational hit, showing
continuously for 24 days. Its success and the high grosses of the next Taiwanese-
dialect film, Flowers of the Raining Night (Shao Luo-hui, 1956), set off a wave of
Taiwanese-dialect films, preventing Xiamen-dialect films from taking over the market.
It was estimated that between 1956 and 1981, when the last of such films, Chen San
and Fifth Madam, was shown, more than 2,000 Taiwanese-dialect films had been
made. At its peak, annual production reached 120. In a way, the emergence of
Taiwanese-dialect film represented a “national” cinema developed by native
Taiwanese filmmakers that they had dreamed of, but failed to realize, ever since the
Japanese colonial period. It became an outlet for Taiwanese, who, under the repressive
KMT regime, and during the suffocating cold war between the United States and
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, needed a native film culture, a Taiwan cinema of
their own, from which they could find consolation.
Even though most Taiwanese-dialect films were of lower technical quality, in
comparison with Mandarin films from Hong Kong and Shanghai, not to mention
Japan and Hollywood, and very few Taiwanese-dialect films were made with
originality, nevertheless, they were a training ground for future creative talent and
technicians. Taiwanese-dialect films had traces of most genres and subject matter
popular in Taiwan, Japan, and the West. In the beginning, the Taiwanese Opera plays,
folk tales, and sensationalized news events were the most popular, and often tended to
be about the sad plight of women. Occasionally, there were also historical films and
films made from original scripts. By the early 1960s, music films, slapstick, spy films,
and other “commercial” genre films replaced the tragedy. When Taiwanese-dialect
film began its decline in the late 1960s, erotic/soft-porn movies became more
prominent in the market, losing much of the original audience.
In general, Taiwanese-dialect films were low-budget “quickies” made for instant
profits by short-sighted investors. However, there were some committed producers

23
and directors, who not only built their own studios and training schools in order to
establish a lasting production system, but who were also serious artists, making high
quality films that had much bigger budgets. Unfortunately, developing a native
Taiwanese cinema was obviously not in the interest of the Nationalist regime, which
designated Mandarin (putonghua) the “national language” of the ROC, and
encouraged the making of Mandarin films in Taiwan and Hong Kong. On the contrary,
Taiwanese-dialect films could find neither financial support from the government, nor
publicity assistance in the press. Worst of all, film censorship constantly found fault
with them and made production too difficult, which forced some of the best
Taiwanese-dialect filmmakers to forsake their film careers and switch to other
non-film businesses.
Most of the facilities and personnel of government-affiliated studios were idle
during the 1950s, when Taiwanese-dialect film reached its first peak. However, many
Mainlander writers, directors, cameramen, soundmen, and other technicians, some
who could not even understand the Taiwanese-dialect, were hired, got their training
on these Taiwanese-dialect films, and later went on to become the core creative talents
and technicians when Mandarin film became popular in the mid-1960s. For example,
one CMPC staff editor worked on more than 200 Taiwanese-dialect films during this
period. Lee Hsing, the major figure in Taiwan cinema during the 1960s and 1970s,
and a Mainlander, started his film career as Taiwanese-dialect director of a dozen
films, before he went on to direct Mandarin film. Ironically, Taiwanese-dialect film
actually cultivated its own Mandarin film rival by giving workers opportunities to
blossom as creative talent or experienced technicians.
In 1962, 77 Taiwanese-dialect films were made, in comparison to one Mandarin
film from government-affiliated studios and four Mandarin films from
privately-owned film companies. Seven year later, there were five films from
government-affiliated studios and 76 from privately-owned film companies, while 117
Taiwanese-dialect films were made. The change in numbers shows the rapid
development of Mandarin film, especially by private film companies, which resulted
from the Nationalist government’s policies to encourage the making of Mandarin film.
The Nationalist government established a Film Industry Guidance Committee,
under the Ministry of Education in 1956 (later transferred to the Government
Information Office, GIO), to help establish a Mandarin film industry. It encouraged
overseas investments, coproduction with Taiwan films, and set up a system to give
awards to quality Mandarin films. Hong Kong Mandarin films were given the status
of “national film,” enjoying tax exemptions as well as other privileges. From 1958,
the Nationalist government would select several quality Mandarin films and award

24
them prize money. This procedure was formalized into the annual Golden Horse
Awards in 1962.
Many factors were attributed to the development of Mandarin films in the 1960s,
and the advent of the “golden era” of Taiwan cinema in the 1970s. Among them, the
founding of Li Han-hsiang’s Grand Motion Picture Company and its subsequent
filmmaking activities in Taiwan between 1963 and 1967, was considered crucial and
influential. Li brought with him actors, writers, directors, producers, a music
composer, and art directors and studio technicians, who helped raise the standards of
film production and technical crafts. Li and King Hu, who helped Lianbang (Union
Film Company) build a film studio, were also credited with training many creative
talent, especially directors and actors, most of them became the central figures in
Taiwan cinema during the 1970s. Though Grand Motion Picture Company made only
20-some features, most of them were of high quality, which stimulated Taiwan
filmmakers to aim higher in their own films, thus raising both the technical and
aesthetic levels of Taiwan-made Mandarin films.
Kung Hong was also considered an important contributor to Taiwan cinema in the
1960s. Kung, general manager of the CMPC from 1963 to 1971, was the mastermind
behind the so-called healthy realism film genre, which advocated an on-location
realistic style of filmmaking, while at the same time avoiding the “dark” side of
society. In general, healthy realism films stress traditional Confucian ethics, rather
than exposing and criticizing social realities. It is very different from either the
realism films made in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s, or wenyi pian
melodramas made in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s. The unique new style
was welcome by critics, as well as domestic and overseas Chinese audiences, thus
expanding the markets for Taiwan-made Mandarin films. Besides making healthy
realism films, Kung Hong also supported directors, such as Lee Hsing, Pai Ching-jui,
Ting Shan-hsi, and Richard Chen Yao-chi in developing genres such as commedia
all'italiana, a new style of martial arts wuxia pian, and slapstick comedy. The
Mandarin films he made dominated the Taiwan film market for many years, winning
major prizes at the Golden Horse Awards.
The CMPC and Grand Motion Picture Company were instrumental in creating the
wave of a specific type of melodrama wenyi pian (films adapted from popular
romantic novels), called Chiungyao film (films adapted from popular writer Chiung
Yao’s novels), which lasted from the mid-1960s to early 1980s. Many of Chiung
Yao’s novels and short stories were set in either an illusory China in the 1930s or
1940s, or an unspecific time and place, in which the lives of romantic couples were
constantly disrupted by class, education, or other differences. Their faith in love

25
would eventually become their weapon leading to salvation. Strictly speaking, such
films were ideologically conservative, sticking to traditional patriarchal social norms
of morality, and emphasizing the virtue of women’s sacrifices. Nevertheless, these
novels, and the films based on them, were very popular among young women in
Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities, becoming a source of comfort and an
outlet for their emotions. In 1976, Chiung Yao established a production company to
make Chiungyao film herself, and stopped granting other filmmakers permission to
adapt her novels and short stories. However, these films, produced by Chiung Yao,
were less creative, and gradually lost her faithful followers. In the early 1980s, when
the Taiwan film industry was going into a recession, box-office failure finally led to
the end of Chiungyao film by 1982.
Another producer, Lianbang’s Sha Yungfong, was also an important figure in
Taiwan cinema during the 1960s and 1970s. In the mid-1960s, Lianbang (aka Union
Film Company), under the leadership of Sha, became a major studio, owning
soundstages and a backlot, film laboratory, distribution company, and theaters. It also
signed long-term contracts with directors, actors, and technicians. In effect, it was a
Taiwan film industry leader during the 1960s, and thus, was the entry port into
Taiwan cinema for many Hong Kong filmmakers. Besides producing and distributing
Mandarin films from Taiwan and Hong Kong, Lianbang owned the largest
distribution network in Taiwan, controlling more than 30 movie theaters across
Taiwan, including seven cinemas it fully owned and operated, investing in
Taiwanese-dialect films in Taiwan and Xiamen-dialect films in Hong Kong. Lianbang
also financially supported Taiwan directors making Mandarin film, such as Lee Hsing,
Pai Ching-jui, Sung Tsun-Shou, and Liu Chia-Chang, among others.
Taiwan Films in the 1970s
When Lianbang invited King Hu to make Dragon Gate Inn (1967), it probably did
not expect it to be such a phenomenal hit, breaking all box-office records in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and many East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. The success of
Dragon Gate Inn prompted a frenzy of new-style swordplay martial arts wuxia pian,
which dominated Taiwan cinema until the early 1970s. Hu’s wuxia films were an
extension of Peking Opera martial arts drama, greatly helped by beautiful
cinematography, editing, and action choreography. Most of Hu’s followers, however,
did not have his talent, and simply told mischievous stories, emphasizing violence in
their films.
Bruce Lee’s The Big Boss (Lo Wei, 1971) and Fist of Fury (Lo Wei, 1972) were
big hits when they were screened in Taiwan. The films came at a time when Taiwan

26
had been expelled from the United Nations, and Japan withdrew its embassy from
Taiwan, recognizing the PRC as the legitimate representative of China. The scenes in
Fist of Fury, showing Bruce Lee trouncing martial arts masters from Japan and the
West with his nunchaku, won applause from audiences throughout Taiwan. They
seemed to be able to release their frustration at international politics, and gain
nationalistic spirit, by watching the violent acts of Bruce Lee.
After Lee, swordplay wuxia pian was replaced by kung fu film and other martial
arts action sub-genres, which reached new heights when Chang Cheh left Shaw
Brothers to set up Chang’s Films Company in 1974, based in Taiwan. Chang and his
team of fighters, actors John (David) Chiang, Ti Lung, Chan Koon-tai, Wang Chung,
Alexander Fu Sheng, and Chik Kun-kwan, made 20 films in Taiwan between 1974
and 1976, most of them mixed genre films, such as slapstick kung fu, fantasy action,
period historical martial arts, and kung fu war films. Chang’s presence inspired many
technicians in Taiwan – cameramen, action directors, even editors, to become kung fu
action film directors. However, most of their films were of lesser quality than Chang’s,
which were characterized by revealing characters’ inner emotions visually, friendships
among men, and beautifully choreographed violent, blood-spurting scenes. The lack
of individual directorial styles, and the lower quality of most other Taiwan kung fu
films, soon caused their demise.
After Taiwan left the United Nations in 1971, nations worldwide began
recognizing the PRC and abandoning the ROC government on Taiwan. The
Nationalists, fearing international seclusion and an imminent Communist take-over,
held patriotic campaigns, making numerous patriotism “national policy films,” mostly
war movies about great fighters in the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the U.S.
recognized the PRC in December 1978, some of the “national policy films” produced
by the CMPC, TFS, and CFS emphasized the blood relationship between native
Taiwanese and Han Chinese on the Mainland. This tactic was primarily used to
dispute the opposition Taiwan independence movement’s claim that Taiwanese were
not Chinese. Other of these films depicted either historic battles in the Nationalist vs.
Communist Civil War, or what terrible things the PRC did during the Cultural
Revolution. Only a couple of films directly reveal the patriotic nationalistic reaction
of Taiwanese people at the severing of official ties with the ROC by the U.S.
government.
While “national policy film” may have reflected the intentions of the Nationalist
government, what was absent in the films of the genre was a reflection of the genuine
atmosphere in society at the time. Outwardly, the atmosphere in Taiwan was actually
not as tense as one would have expected after the breaking of diplomatic ties with the

27
U.S. Only the anti-government demonstrations held by the opposition movement
broke the appearance of calmness. However, the wave of emigration and an increase
in real estate for sale after 1979 revealed the uncertainty about their future felt by
common Taiwanese people.
Chaos in the film industry more or less reflected such uncertainty, as was attested
to in 1979-1980 by the emergence and popularity of so-called “social realist film”
(that was actually “gangster action film”), most of which sensationalized either
violent crime, drugs and gambling by gangsters, or bloody revenge by victims (mostly
young women). In reality, gangsters and organized criminal organizations that were
rumored to be involved in the making of films in the early to mid-1970s, began to
start their own film companies to produce and distribute “commercial” films. This
new situation resulted in numerous violent fights, thus deterring many non-gangster
filmmakers from making films. The audience was antipathetic to the unimaginative
remakes/copies of “national policy film,” martial arts swordplay wuxia pian, and kung
fu film, as well as romantic Chiungyao film and melodramatic wenyi pian, causing a
significant decline at the box office. Almost every film made by government-affiliated
studios lost money, forcing them, especially the CMPC, to cut the number of film
productions.
Taiwan New Cinema and After
It was against such a sluggish economic environment that a fresh group of young
writers and directors began to make different and original films. Before the CMPC
implemented its “newcomer policy” in 1982, there were already many “new” films
made by “new” directors, such as Lin Ching-chieh’s “campus films” about high
school students, as well as Hou Hsiao-hsien’s and Chen Kun-Hou’s light musical-
romance films. However, the timing of these films was premature. The box office
needed a major studio like the CMPC to create an impact.
Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ko I-Cheng, Chang Yi, and Wan Jen, among
other new directors, came right after In Our Time (1982) and The Sandwich Man
(1983) were shown theatrically. Their emergence must be credited to the CMPC’s
General Manager Ming Chi, as well as to Hsiao Yeh and Wu Nian-Jen, writers who
became scriptwriters and film developers at the studio. Most films made by Taiwan
New Cinema (TNC) directors were successful, both critically and commercially, from
1982 to 1984. After 1985, when many of their films did not do well, such as Edward
Yang’s Taipei Story, critical voices against Taiwan New Cinema started to appear in
the press, and such critics gradually formed an alliance with the traditional film
industry (“old” cinema). The conflict between filmmakers and critics who supported

28
and opposed the TNC extended from newspapers and journals to the jury meetings at
the 1985 Golden Horse Awards. Contrary to the animosity shown against Taiwan New
Cinema films in Taiwan, international film festivals in Europe and North America
began to celebrate the TNC films, especially those by Hou and Yang, which won
numerous awards beginning in 1986. Facing the unfriendly press and film critics,
discrimination from the local film industry, and an apathetic government, the TNC
filmmakers and their supporters finally issued the “Taiwan New Cinema Manifesto”
in 1987, criticizing the government, press, and certain film critics.
The Manifesto further antagonized the film industry and the press, forcing the
TNC directors to fund their own films from non-traditional sources, including foreign
ones. Some considered the issuing of the Manifesto the official end of Taiwan New
Cinema. From then on, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang, as well as Tsai Ming-liang
and Ang Lee, among other Taiwan directors, were recognized throughout the world as
film masters, and most of their films, though failing in the domestic market,
succeeded, at least critically, in the international art film market. “Commercial”
cinema and “art” cinema became two segregated camps in Taiwan since the
mid-1980s, and this continued for two decades until the emergence of a new
generation of filmmakers in mid-2000s. The attention that Hou, Yang, and other
young directors and their films that followed them, attracted in international film
festivals was considered the best publicity for the internationally secluded ROC
government. Consequently, it established a Domestic Film Guidance Fund in 1988 to
help produce quality art films. The “commercial” film industry questioned the
legitimacy of the KMT government’s unilateral assistance to art cinema, and insisted
on sharing the subsidy from Guidance Fund, thus starting a decade-long dispute about
the Fund between both camps.
The Guidance Fund came at a time when Taiwan cinema continued to decline,
without a foreseeable bottom. Though the TNC directors were accused of causing the
decline, their meager creative output could not realistically have caused any sizable
blow to the industry. Actually, the major distributors of Hong Kong films that
hollowed out the Taiwan film industry by investing all their capital in Hong Kong
productions were at the root of the problem, rather than the TNC films. The
prevalence of other entertainment sources all contributed to the decline of Taiwan
cinema as well. Such sources included the “MTV” video parlors that rented small
rooms by the hour to customers for watching hundreds of laser disks of foreign and
Taiwanese movies, stores that rented (and night markets that sold) pirated videotapes
of movies from Hollywood, Japan, Hong Kong, and even the PRC, as well as
competing new media such as CATV and Satellite TV. To add insult to injury, the

29
Nationalist government (and the Democratic Progressive Party government that
succeeded it in 2000) surrendered to pressures from the U.S. government and opened
wide the Taiwan market to Hollywood blockbusters, which were unrivaled by
domestic productions.
After the mid-1990s, the number of Taiwan films (or guopian - “national films”)
shown in the domestic market, and their box-office, plunged quickly. In 1997, there
were 18. By 2001, the number of guopian dropped to nine, a record low. Since then,
the number has fluctuated between 16 and 27. In the worst case, the total gross of all
nine domestic production in Taipei in 2001 was NT$2.86 million (less than
US$85,000), even worse than that of a rerun of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon /W
o hu cang long (2000). The market share for guopian in Taipei that year
was only 0.125 percent, the rock bottom in history. It took another six years for the
situation to change for the better.
In the 1980s, in view of Hong Kong’s imminent return to the PRC in 1997, the
Government Information Office proposed that Hong Kong films should no longer be
considered guopian, and should not receive any special treatment. However, such a
proposition was not accepted by the Nationalist government. In 1996, Hong Kong
films were treated by the GIO separately from foreign films, and the KMT continued
to allow them to enjoy certain benefits. The job of determining the identity of Hong
Kong films was still delegated to the Hong Kong and Kowloon Cinema & Theatrical
Enterprise Free General Association Limited, which was renamed the Hong Kong
Cinema & Theatrical Association Limited in 1996, before Hong Kong was turned
over to China and became a Special Administrative Region.
The relationship between Taiwan and the PRC film industry also underwent a
dramatic change in the 1990s. Actually, rules and regulation for movie affairs
regarding Mainland China were gradually relaxed in the late 1980s. Beginning in
1988, foreign films shooting on location in China, such as The Last Emperor
(Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987), were finally allowed to screen in Taiwan. By 1990, such
a regulation was applied to Hong Kong films as well.
Around the same time, Taiwan producers started investing in films made in China
that were either directed by Chinese directors, such as Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang
Yimou, 1991), or by Taiwanese directors, such as Five Girls and a Rope (Yeh
Hung-Wei, 1991).
The following year, the China Cross-Strait Film Art Association was founded by
private producers, distributors, and exhibitors, as well as directors and actors, to
mediate movie affairs between Taiwan and the Mainland. In 1991, the Cross-Strait

30
and Hong Kong Directors Association was founded in Hong Kong by Taiwan director
Lee Hsing and Hong Kong director Ng See-Yuen. Chinese films started to shoot on
location in Taiwan in 1993. The first Cross-Strait Film Festival was held in June of
that year in Taipei, Taichung, Kaoshiung, Beijing, Nanjing, and Chengdou. After the
head of the PRC’s State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television visited Taiwan
in 1995, official exchanges between Taiwan cinema and Chinese cinema intensified,
with the result that, in 1996, Chinese films were allowed to show commercially in
Taiwan. In the 2000s, many Taiwanese film people went to China to work as writers,
directors, producers, project developers, or actors. Since the film market burgeoned
during that decade, a number of Taiwan directors went to seek funding in China. It is
foreseeable that future cooperation between Taiwan cinema and China cinema will be
close.
Conditions for making films in Taiwan got better in the late 2000s. In 2008, Cape
No. 7 took everyone by surprise and grossed NT$530 million (US$16 million) in
Taiwan, the second-highest Taiwan box-office in history at the time, ranking only
behind Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). Since then, several Taiwan films by young
directors were able to succeed commercially, thus bringing hope to the film industry
that Taiwan cinema is finally on the rise. The number of Taiwan productions is
estimated to be in the vicinity of 50 in 2011. The total box-office of some 30 Taiwan
productions screened in 2011 is said to be NT$1.5 billion (US$50 million), which
accounts for 20 percent of total film receipts in Taiwan, a 20-year record.
Wei Te-Sheng, writer-director of Cape No. 7, finally finished W
arrior of the
Rainbow (2011), two-feature film project he had been preparing for more than a
decade. The film was in competition at the 2011 Venice Film Festival in September
2011. As the most visible and highest anticipated film in recent history, the two parts
combined had earned in the domestic market a total of NT$880 million (US$29
million), which makes Seediq Bale the second top-grossing film in the history of
Taiwan cinema, beating Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) and losing only to Avatar
(James Cameron, 2009).
The most astonishing surprise in 2011, however, was Y
ou Are the Apple of My Eye,
a youth-romance debut film directed by popular web writer Giddens Ko, adapted from
his novel of the same title which was published on the internet. It’s box-office in
Taiwan was estimated at NT$415 million (US$13.7 million), ranking third in the 2011
domestic market, losing only to Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay, 2011)
and Seediq Bale: Flag of the Sun, the first part of W
arrior of the Rainbow. What
makes the film especially notable was its low production cost, less than NT$30
million (US$1 million). In 2012, it became the highest grossing Chinese-language

31
film of all time in Hong Kong, taking in more than HK$61 million (US$7.89 million)
after 73 days in cinemas, and beating the previous record set by Stephen Chow’s
Kung Fu Hustle (2004).
To sum up, it is not hard to conclude that cinema development during the
50-some-year Nationalist rule (and eight-year DPP), was deeply affected by political
circumstances. Not only did the Nationalist government, refuse to lend a helping hand
to the earlier autonomous development of Taiwanese-dialect film, it actually hindered
development through censorship and other measures. Instead of supporting native
Taiwanese cinema as the “national cinema,” Taiwan’s Nationalist government pushed
forward a Mandarin cinema that could connect with Mandarin cinema in Hong Kong,
and with overseas viewers in Southeast Asia.
The connection with Hong Kong cinema was very important to the KMT, since it
needed all the help it could get to fight against the Communists, represented in the
Hong Kong film industry by left-wing studios and filmmakers. On the one hand,
Hong Kong right-wing studios and filmmakers of Mandarin films benefited from their
relationship with the ROC government. On the other hand, the Taiwan film industry
also benefited when Hong Kong filmmakers, such as Li Han-hsiang, King Hu, and
Chang Cheh, among others, moved to Taiwan to make Mandarin film. The exchange
of personnel between the two areas was quite strong for almost a quarter-century, until
each area developed its own native cinema, i.e., Hong Kong New Wave and Taiwan
New Cinema, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Through films made by Taiwan New Cinema directors and post-Taiwan New
Cinema directors, Taiwan film was not only recognized internationally, but considered
an important contribution to world cinema. However, these art films failed to attract
the general audience back home, and thus, were falsely blamed for the fall of Taiwan
cinema that began in the late 1980s and continued for nearly two decades.
The relationship between Taiwan cinema, China cinema, and Hong Kong cinema
entered a new era when the cross-strait relationship began to change in 1987, and
continued developing after China opened its market and its economy exploded. Many
talented Taiwan filmmakers now work in the Chinese film industry. Some Chinese
production companies also began to invest in Taiwanese filmmakers and Taiwan films.
What such close ties will lead to in the near future remains an interesting and
important question for the Taiwan government, and especially for Taiwan filmmakers.

32
Chronology
1895 China cedes Taiwan (Formosa) and the Pescadores (Penghu) to Japan under
the Shimonoseki Treaty that ends the first Sino-Japanese War. Japanese military
forces meet severe resistance from local residents.
1896 The Imperial Diet of Japan passes a law that empowers the governor-general
of Taiwan with all rights to rule Taiwan. Every aspect of life, including filmmaking
and exhibitions, is regulated and controlled by the government-general office. All
imported films are subjected to censorship despite their previous approval in the
mainland by the Japanese government.
1897 A Mutoscope-like motion picture device is introduced to Taiwan.
1899 Edison’s Vitascope arrives in Taiwan via Japan, marking the beginning of the
island’s motion picture era.
1900 The Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe system appears in Taiwan.
1901 At the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi, Takamstsu
Toyojirō visits Taiwan to show films depicting the battles of Peking by the
Eight-Nation Alliance, and the Boer War, to Japanese residents and native Taiwanese.
1903 After learning the skill of film projection in Tokyo, Liao Huang starts to
show films in Taiwan, thus making him the first native Taiwanese traveling exhibitor.
1904 The Russo-Japanese War creates great interest in such films among Japanese
residents. Takamatsu is welcomed wherever he travels in Taiwan to show films and
slides depicting the battles. Film exhibition becomes a regular feature in fund-raising
charity music concerts.
1905 Takamatsu Toyojirō raises ¥15,000 for war relief from about 100 screenings
of Russo-Japanese War films throughout major cities and small towns in Taiwan.
1906 Governor-General Sakuma Samata promulgates the first five-year
“Administrating Aborigines Plan” (1906-1910), putting the emphasis on wiping out
Aborigines who refuse to accept Japanese rule. A total of 18 major military actions are
taken to subjugate the indigenous people living deep in the mountains.
1907 The Government-General Office commissions Takamatsu to make an
information film on the situation of colonial rule. The film, An Introduction to the

33
Actual Conditions in Taiwan, is the first film ever made in Taiwan. It is first shown in
Taiwan, and later presented in conjunction with performances by aboriginal dancers,
native Taiwanese geishas, and a traditional Taiwanese band to audiences at the Tokyo
Industrial Exposition, as well as in major cites throughout Japan during the following
seven months.
1908 Takamatsu Toyojirō brings his family with him to live in Taiwan. Takamatsu
starts building theaters in eight major cities, for film exhibitions and theater
performances.
1909 Takamatsu Toyojirō’s company, Taiwan D jinsha, hires cameramen and
crews from Japan to make films for the Patriotic Women’s Association (PWA). More
than 20 titles about the subjugation of Aborigines by the Government-General Office
are made between 1909 and 1912. The PWA establishes a motion pictures section to
handle traveling film screenings.
1911 The first movie house, Y
oshinotei Theater, is opened in Taipei.
1912 Nakasato Tokutarō, one of the cameramen recruited from Japan by Taiwan
D jinsha to photograph the colonial government’s military operations against the
Aborigines, is killed during an action, making him the first Japanese cameraman to
die on a battlefield.
1914 The Government-General Office starts showing educational and propaganda
films to students and general public, through the Taiwan Education Society (TES).
The TES establishes a motion pictures unit for the purchase of films and to handle
screenings in major cities and remote locations throughout Taiwan, as well as on the
offshore islands.
1915 Edison’s Kinetophone system is brought to Taiwan from Japan. Japanese
“chain dramas,” combining scenes on stage with exterior scenes on film, begin to
appear in Taiwan. The Mutsumi-dan Theater Troupe photographs a dozen exterior
scenes in Taipei for its stage plays Feudist Destiny and Big Crime.
1916 The PWA terminates its motion pictures section and donates all its films to
the TES. Takamatsu’s Taiwan D jinsha is hired by the TES to film the 1916 Taiwan
Industrial Exhibition, celebrating the 20th
anniversary of Japanese colonial rule. The
film is first shown in Tokyo to the Imperial Family and social elite associated with
Taiwan, then travels to Japan’s pivotal cities.
1917 After selling most of his businesses in Taiwan, Takamatsu returns to Tokyo,
thus ending a major film era in Taiwan. The TES hires Hagiya Kenzō, a professional

34
cameraman from Japan, thus making it the first government-associated organization
capable of producing, distributing, and exhibiting non-fiction film in Taiwan.
1918 The “Taisho Democratic Period” in Japan begins. A partisan cabinet is
formed in the imperial government. Colonial policy over Taiwan is revised to include
Taiwan as an extension of Japan proper. Civilian government officials start to be
appointed as governor-generals of Taiwan.
1919 Taiwan social elites begin to form political groups to push for political and
social reforms, fight for political freedom, and bring cultural enlightenment to the
average Taiwanese.
1921 To help in ruling the Aborigines effectively, the colonial government’s police
bureau sets up a motion pictures unit to make films about, and show films to, the
Aborigines, as well as to entertain the police and their families stationed in remote
aboriginal areas. The Taiwan Cultural Association (TCA) is formed by Taiwanese
social elite to culturally, socially, and politically enlighten native Taiwanese by
publishing newspapers, making public speeches throughout Taiwan, and operating
summer schools.
1923 Crown Prince Hirohito visits Taiwan. A film about his visit is made and
shown throughout Taiwan and in theaters in Japan. Taiwanese theater troupes start to
stage native “chain dramas.” One of the first such stage plays, Liao Tian-ding, the
Invincible Thief of the W
orld, premieres in Kiryū-za Theater. Taiwan Nichi Nichi
Shimp , a government-affiliated major newspaper, sets up a motion picture
department to produce and exhibit fiction and non-fiction films.
1924 Buddha’s Pupils, the first feature film shot in Taiwan, is produced and
directed by Japanese director Edward Kinshi Tanaka, who was Douglas Fairbanks’
valet for seven year before returning to Japan at the invitation of Shochiku Studios.
The film is said to be produced for American and European audiences. Chinese films
made in Shanghai start to appear in Taiwan theaters.
1925 The motion pictures unit of Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shimp produces God Is
Merciless, thought to be the first Taiwanese feature made totally by local Japanese and
Taiwanese talent. The Taiwan Cinema Study Association, a research group for a
proposed corporation to produce, distribute, and exhibit feature films, is formed by
mostly native Taiwanese young businessmen and intellectuals. Its first feature film,
Whose Fault Is It?, premieres in September at the Eraku-za Theater to a
predominantly local Taiwanese audience. Using a completely local Taiwan cast and
crew, the film claims to be a “pure Taiwanese production.”

35
1926 The Regulation for Motion Picture Film Censorship is formulated by the
colonial government. A native political group, the TCA, establishes a motion picture
department to show cultural films throughout Taiwan, for the purpose of enlightening
common Taiwanese. The department ceases operations 18 months later when the
association splits into several factions.
1927 Major Japanese film company Nikkatsu sends its new directors, Tasaka
Tomotaka and Mizoguchi Kenji, to Taiwan to make Hero of Alishan, which imitates
The V
anishing American, a film produced by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation in
1925.
1929 The colonial government begins arresting leftist leaders of Taiwanese
political groups. Eventually, all political groups are either pressured to disband or are
forced to cease operations before the Japanese war with China erupts. Li Shu, the only
native Taiwanese cinematographer during Japanese colonial rule, founds Baida
Productions with partners, and photographs a very popular action romance film,
Blood Stains (1930), produced and directed by Zhang Sunqu, one of the directors of
Whose Fault Is It?.
1932 With full cooperation and support from the colonial government, Goh , the
Righteous Man is made by the Taiwan Film Production Office (TFPO) of Japan Gōdō
News Agency’s Film Department.
1933 Commissioned by Liangyu Films, a local distribution company, TFPO
produces its second feature, Strange Gentleman, a private detective genre film.
1934 The colonial government raises duties for inspecting Chinese films to restrict
the import of Shanghai-made films by local distributors, to no avail.
1935 A Taiwan Exposition is held in October to celebrate the 40th
anniversary of
Japanese rule. Four modern movie theaters are built and Japanese film studios start to
set up branch offices in Taiwan, marking another new era in Taiwan film distribution
and exhibition.
1936 Alas Shisangan, one of Taiwan’s earliest sound films, is produced by the
Taiwan Production Office of Kokusui Sound Film Productions.
1937 The Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out in July. Chinese films are totally
prohibited from showing in theaters. A Provisional Department of Information is set
up in the Government-Genera Office to control media. Newsreels on battles in China
are very popular, prompting the establishment in Taipei of the first cinema totally
dedicated to showing newsreels.

36
1938 The colonial government starts to implement a k minka policy to assimilate
native Taiwanese as Japanese subjects. All forms of Taiwanese entertainment are
prohibited in rural areas and replaced by screenings of propaganda films. Prohibition
on the import and screening of foreign films is lifted. Foreign films are preferred by
college students. Taiwan First Film Productions screens Spring Breeze, its debut film
that is successful both critically and commercially.
1939 The Film Law is passed by the Imperial Diet, going into effect in October.
Taiwanese-owned film distribution companies are forced to form a unified Taiwan
Film Distribution Company, which will eventually be assimilated into the Business
Association of Taiwan Film Distribution. Manchurian films and German films start to
appear in Taiwan through the newly established Man’ei Film Distribution Association.
Taiwan Film Company is founded by local Taiwanese to produce, distribute, and
exhibit local films.
1940 All theaters in Taiwan are assimilated into a theater co-op. Traveling
exhibitors across the island are absorbed by the Taiwan Traveling Exhibitors’ Co-op.
1941 Imperial Subjects for Patriotic Services (ISPS) is formed in April to help the
colonial government coordinate its wartime administration and implement the
k minka policy. Taiwan Film Association (Tai’ei) is founded to regulate entertainment,
including all film activities, such as production, the theatrical and non-theatrical
distribution and exhibition of both fiction and non-fiction films, island-wide and in
southern China, as well as in Southeast Asia. Foreign films are still shown and
welcomed by native Taiwanese audiences until December, when the Japanese military
attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasion of British Malaya provoke the Pacific War.
The colonial government commissions Nikkatsu to produce a “national policy film,”
Clan of the Sea, depicting Japanese activities in Taiwan during the Dutch colonial
period in the 17th
century.
1942 Total war causes the formation of the Taiwan Entertainment Regulating
Company (TERC) that controls all entertainment activities, including film exhibitions,
theatrical performances, and variety shows in makeshift sites. The colonial
government commissions Shochiku to produce another “national policyfilm,” Sayon’s
Bell.
1943 Tai’ei builds a studio capable of developing and printing film, recording
sound, editing, and shooting titles. All its films are newsreels and informational films.
1945 Japan surrenders to the Allies. Taiwan is controlled by the Nationalist
government, which dispatches a representative to take over Tai’ei, the Japanese film

A Brief History of Taiwan Cinema.pdf

A Brief History of Taiwan Cinema.pdf

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