COLD WAR HOT WAX

In 1960s Taiwan, amid Cold War anxieties and generational change, a pirate record dealer and his flight attendant sister, with an American beatnik CIA agent, are about to instigate an unlikely pop music revolution.

1966, Taipei. Brother and sister, Dizzy and Lulu CHEN are looking for opportunities in a rapidly changing world. Dizzy runs A Plus, a GI bar for gangsters, and deals pop records on the side to American soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Lulu, a flight attendant for a CIA-backed airline, Civil Air Transport, brings the originals home in the baggage – between the corporate bribes she collects for Mme CHIANG and the Intel she gathers for her CIA handler Alan BOUNDS. But BOUNDS’ days are numbered. He’s being overshadowed by his youthful colleague, beatnik prodigy Jerry KOVACS, who is new in town with his sonic experiments and fake radio transmissions. And Jerry needs a front for his project – a whole recording industry. Lulu senses an opportunity but A Plus has more sinister ambitions for Dizzy’s record-dealing network. Meanwhile, events across the Taiwan Strait are turning the world upside down. Just right for a musical revolution.