Whilst Mandarin is the most the widely spoken language in Taiwan, Taiwanese – a variant of Hokkien – is spoken by around three quarters of the population. It’s no wonder then, during martial law era, when the state was heavily promoting the Mandarin film industry, there was still a sizeable number of a Taiwanese language productions (named Taiyupian) – reaching over 1,100 feature films from 1950s to late 1970s.
During this era, Taiwanese language films were often produced on incredibly low budgets and shot and edited within a couple of weeks. Despite this, the genre’s use of the local Taiwanese language meant that audiences were able to understand the films without subtitles – helping to propel them to popularity.
The films often were melodramas, such as Xin Qi (辛奇)’s “Encounter at the Station” from 1965 – which focused on a love triangle and featured the plot points of a death in the family or overwhelming debt. Notably, it’s also one of the many films which saw a romance blossom or end at one of Taiwan’s railway stations.
However, not all films were melodramatic – Lin Tuan-qiu (林摶 秋)’s 1960 film “The Husband’s Secret” mixed genres, sometimes featuring over-the-top melodrama whilst also being able to depict physical and psychological violence. Lin adapted the film from a Japanese source with aim of raising the standard of Taiwanese language cinema, placing the production in a firmly Taiwanese context.
Together, Lin Tuan-qiu and Xin Qi produced some of Taiwanese language cinema’s most renowned works – however, they were not the only ones contributing to the genre. Liang Che-Fu (梁哲 夫)’s “Tarzan and the Treasure” follows a Macao interpreter and a Taiwanese soldier in Malaysia search for Japanese imperial treasures, whilst “Zhang Di seeks A-Zhu” by director Shou-Jen Hsu is an example of how the genre incorporated elements of camp and opera, being produced in 1969.
Unfortunately, as the martial law era government continued to promote Mandarin language cinema, many Taiyupian slowly were crowded out of the market – and by the 1970s, it was regularly the case that years would go by before a Taiwanese language film would be produced here or there. Indeed, many of the genre’s films have been lost time.
Since the lifting of martial law in the 1980s, new directors have been hitting the scene, producing once again films in the Taiwanese language. As for the old classics of the Taiyupian era, several hundred have been restored due to the work of the Taiwan Film Institute – and the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, from 2017 onwards, has been giving UK viewers the chance to enjoy these restored classics through “Taiwan’s Lost Commercial Cinema: Recovered and Restored”. You can find out more about the project at its website: taiyupian.uk