Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (On The Society File Of Shanghai, 1981)The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York is pleased to announce the “Taiwan B-Movies” series to be presented by the Anthology Film Archives in New York from December 2 through December 15, 2020. All films will stream online free of charge.
Featuring five films representative of Taiwan cinema from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, as well as the 2005 documentary Taiwan Black Movies, the series shines a spotlight on a period that has been largely overlooked abroad. A total of 117 genre films mostly based on true crime stories involving organized crime, prostitution, prison, and rape-revenge were produced during this period.
The five films are Never Too Late To Repent (1979), The Lady Avenger (1981), On The Society File Of Shanghai (1981), Woman Revenger (1982), and The Challenge Of The Lady Ninja (1983).
“It is useful to recall the historical context in which the Taiwanese B-movie emerged. During the late 70s and early 80s, Taiwan was undergoing a transitional crisis as political power shifted away from the aging Chiang Kai-shek, who eventually died in 1975. As the world suffered the Second Oil Shock of 1979, and the U.S. ended its official relations with Taiwan, the country saw the rise of political opposition to the ruling Nationalist party that resulted in the Formosa Incident and the subsequent murders of an opposition politician’s family. … As a result, Taiwanese society was swept by anxiety and restlessness. Never Too Late To Repent, released in 1979, was the first Taiwanese film to feature prison and prostitution in the story’s setting. Its dark imagination and interpretation of crime reflected a sense of people’s collective fear. Two years later, On The Society File Of Shanghai (1981) pushed open the door to a whole new genre: female revenge films. […]”—Kelly Y. L. Yang, producer of Taiwan Black Movies
The series is co-organized by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute and Taiwan Cinema Toolkit, and supported by the Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York.
For more information, please visit Anthology Film Archives and Taipei Cultural Center.
