Immigrant Stories at the Spot Taipei Film House
Four interesting movies are playing at the Spot Taipei Film House in the month of May. They are Taiwanese movies and they offer a fascinating look at the experience of foreign women who marry men in Taiwan. I had been told that there were no English subtitles, but the other day I happened to catch a trailer for one of them, and it had English subtitles. So I checked again, and I was told this time that all four had English subtitles.
The four movies are The Golden Child, The Moonlight in Jilin, My Little Honeymoon, and The Happy Life of Debbie.
Each movie plays once or twice a day with the first showing at eleven in the morning and the last usually around nine. They’ll be playing until May 25th and tickets cost NT$220. You can buy tickets at the ticket counter at the Spot or through any artstickets.com outlet.
I went to see The Happy Life of Debbie already, and it was very good. It’s the story of a young woman from Indonesia who came to Taiwan and married a local man in a small town in the south of Taiwan. Life isn’t easy for her, but she makes the best of it and makes a home for herself. I particularly enjoyed just seeing normal day-to-day things in Taiwan, things that I’m quite familiar with – street life, scooters, schools, mahjong, and local karaoke joints. I also enjoyed the easy flow of languages as people in the movie shifted from Chinese to Indonesian to even bits of English.
The schedule for the movies can be found at the Spot’s website here. I plan to go back to see all four of the movies. There is something about the immigrant experience that appeals to me. I believe My Little Honey Moon tells the story of a young woman from Vietnam and is set in the Meinong District, a famous Hakka district in southern Taiwan. Meinong was recently selected as one of the 10 best tourist areas in Taiwan, so it should be interesting to get this inside look at it. My Little Honey Moon was also the opening film for the 2012 New Taipei City Film Festival, which just ended.
Tags: Indonesia, Meinong District, NT, Spot, Taiwan
Mn~you plan to watch all four of the movies?
You must be quite interested in these immigrant stories.
Looking forward to reading your comments after watching.
Yes, I do plan to watch all four of them. I find the experiences of immigrants to be interesting. However, these movies are also interesting for me simply because they show normal everyday life in Taiwan. I like to see how people live and to see it from their point of view.
I went to see “My Little Honey Moon” last night. I enjoyed it very much, and I got a big surprise when the movie ended. I’ll write something about that as soon as I get the chance. I’ll probably watch the other two movies this weekend.