AH FEI

Adapted from the awarded book of the same name by LIAO Hui-ying, who, along with HOU Hsiao-hsien (the director of City of Sadness), won a Golden Horse for the best-adapted screenplay. It was also selected for the Annual Top 10 Chinese Films at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards. It’s an essential classic movie in the history of Taiwanese films.

Born into a wealthy family, Hsiu-chin lives with her husband, LI Shih-chun, and their two young children: a son and a daughter. Shih-chun’s reckless behavior eventually plunges the family into economic hardship. When his affair with a married woman is exposed, they are forced to sell off their valuables and flee to Taipei. Hsiu-chin’s daughter, Ah Fei, is hardworking and studious but finds herself caught between her increasingly controlling mother and her weak and useless father, while also having to endure their unfair cultural favoring of boys over girls. As she grows older, Ah Fei begins to develop her own sense of independence and self-autonomy, causing conflicts with her mother to intensify.