Tag Archives: spider lilies

BREAKING THE WAVES — THE FILMS OF ZERO CHOU: SPIDER LILIES

Isabella Leong and Rainie Yang star as potential lovers in Zero Chou’s award-winning SPIDER LILIES


SPIDER LILIES (CI QING) (Zero Chou, 2007)
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium
40 Lincoln Center Plaza (111 Amsterdam Ave. & 66th St.)
Thursday, June 9, free, 6:30
Series continues Thursday nights at 6:30 through June 30
www.nypl.org

Winner of the Teddy Award for best queer feature film at the 2007 Berlinale, Zero Chou’s Spider Lilies is an involving melodrama that starts out silly and quirky but quickly turns to far more serious topics. Rainie Yang is delightful as eighteen-year-old Jade, a kawaii innocent who tries to make money as a sexy web-cam girl but never goes too far, sometimes because her granny walks into her room and looks into the camera at rather inappropriate moments. When one of her loyal followers — an internet cop participating in a sting to entrap online sex sites but who harbors a hidden affection for Jade — suggests she get a tattoo, Jade goes to a local parlor run by Takeko (Isabella Leong), a slightly older young woman whom Jade had a puppy-dog crush on when she was nine. But Takeko, a serious person with a wild tattoo running up and down her left arm, doesn’t seem to remember Jade, at least not at first. When Jade asks for the same spider lily tattoo, Takeko refuses, claiming that they “are the flowers that grow along the path to hell.” Indeed, Takeko seems to live in a private hell all her own, filled with haunting childhood memories centered around an earthquake that killed her father and left her brother, Ching (Shen Jian-hung), with severe mental problems that require special care. She is also a surrogate older sister for Ah-Dong (Shih Yuan-chieh), a wannabe-rebel who finds strength and confidence from Takeko’s tattoos but uses them to bully unsuspecting students. Although the story, written by Singing Chen, goes off on too many tangents, Chou brings everything together as the characters approach a bittersweet finale. Leong and Yang make a fascinating potential couple; Chou, the only openly lesbian filmmaker in Taiwan, prepared them for their roles by having them watch episodes of The L Word. Spider Lilies continues Chou’s use of one of the colors of the gay pride rainbow flag in each of her films; in this case, she features green, seen in the flashy wig that Jade wears. Spider Lilies will be shown at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on June 9 at 6:30 as part of the series “Breaking the Waves: The Films of Zero Chou” and will be introduced by the director. The series continues on June 16 with 2004’s Splendid Float, June 23 with 2008’s Drifting Flowers, and June 30 with 2001’s Corners. Keep watching twi-ny for select reviews of these rarely shown but important and evocative works.

BREAKING THE WAVES — THE FILMS OF ZERO CHOU: WAVE BREAKER

WAVE BREAKER examines a family tragedy with warmth and a touch of humor

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium
40 Lincoln Center Plaza (111 Amsterdam Ave. & 66th St.)
Tuesday, June 7, and Thursdays June 9-30, free, 6:30
www.nypl.org

The only openly lesbian Taiwanese filmmaker, forty-one-year-old Zero Chou has been making documentaries and narrative features since 1997, dealing with issues and concerns central to the LGBT community in Taiwan, Mainland China (where her films are banned), and around the world. Her feature films each highlight a color from the rainbow flag, so it is appropriate that she will be in New York City during Gay Pride Month for a retrospective being held at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, where several of her films will be screened as part of the LGBT, LPA Cinema Series in conjunction with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. On June 7, she will introduce her 2009 film, Wave Breaker, and she will introduce the award-winning Spider Lilies on June 9. The series continues on June 16 with 2004’s Splendid Float, June 23 with 2008’s Drifting Flowers, and June 30 with 2001’s Corners. Keep watching twi-ny for reviews of these rarely shown but important and evocative works.

WAVE BREAKER (Zero Chou, 2009)
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium
40 Lincoln Center Plaza at Broadway & 66th St.
Thursday, June 9, free, 6:30
www.nypl.org

The domestic opening-night selection of the 2009 Women Make Waves Film Festival in Taipei, Zero Chou’s Wave Breaker is a heart-wrenching family drama that pulls no punches. Made for public television, Wave Breaker stars Yao Yuan Hao as Ho Hao-yang, a dedicated teacher and surfer who contracts the debilitating — and fatal — congenital disease spinocerebellar ataxia. As he begins losing his balance and his vision blurs, his mother, Shen Li-ping (Xu Gui-Ying), a local politician, is determined to help him through physical therapy and do anything she can to keep him alive so he doesn’t suffer the same fate her husband did. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Ho-ting, has dropped out of school, refuses to get a job, and instead devotes all his time to his rock band, whose main song asks the obvious question, “What is the meaning of life?” Writer-director Chou, an openly lesbian filmmaker whose previous work often examines issues involving the LGBT community, here plays it straightforward, focusing on the mind-set of the three protagonists and not getting caught up in subplots or medical jargon. Hao-yang, Ho-ting, and Ms. Shen each faces the family crisis in their own way as multiple tragedies await. The only breaks Chou offers from the stark reality of the awful situation are short animated clips that compare Hao-yang to a penguin, briefly lightening the darkness. Wave Breaker is screening June 7 at 6:30 as part of the Library of Performing Arts series “Breaking the Waves: The Films of Zero Chou” and will be introduced by the director.