Taipei StoryMovies like Taipei Story
- Key Features:
- Urban alienation, Existential crisis, Relationship drama, Cultural identity, Modernization, Nostalgia, Financial trouble, Betrayal, Urban decay, Taiwanese cinema
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, World cinema viewers, Melancholy drama lovers, Cultured audience
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Disillusionment → Resignation
Taipei Story

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.
Taipei Story
Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother-in-law is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions.

Vicky recalls her romances with her exes Hao Hao and Jack in the neon-lit clubs of Taipei.

A-yuan and A-yun are both from the small mining town of Jio-fen. They move to Taipei, where A-yuan is an apprentice by day and goes to night school, and A-yun works as a helper at a tailors. Everyone thinks they are meant for each other, and so do they. They fail to see time and fate are beyond their control.

An uncompromising look into urban life from the eyes of a voyeuristic photographer, a rebellious teenager, and a married couple teetering on the edge of adultery.

Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.

Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.

A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.

A young American woman is sent by her parents to a cultural immersion program in Taipei where she begins a new journey of self-discovery and romance.

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.

In the final days of the year 1999, almost everyone in Taiwan has died from a strange plague that ravished the island. As rain pours down relentlessly, a single man is stuck with an unfinished plumbing job and a hole in his floor. This results in a very odd relationship with the woman who lives below him.

An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China.

In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.

When Ah Bu, a girl from a small fishing town in Taiwan, finds a glass bottle with a romantic message, she travels to Hong Kong to find her prince charming. As it turns out, her prince charming, Albert, happens to be gay. But all is not lost when Ah Bu meets the dashing Chi Wu. Meanwhile, Ah Bu's boyfriend from Taiwan comes looking for her, as the action and romance follow Ah Bu back to Taiwan.

On a dark and rainy night, a historic and regal Taipei cinema sees its final film: 1967 martial arts feature "Dragon Inn".

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

A debt collector strikes a deal with a debt-ridden woman struggling to care for her ailing father: he will take care of her bills if she agrees to date him.

Mabel, Liam and Aaron have been friends since childhood. Their bonds of friendship are tested when, years later, they realize their friendship is the only reason they have made it through emotional hardships and extreme tragedies.

The films spans two decades as the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks that begin when Qiyue and Ansheng were just thirteen. The two became inseparable until they met a boy who ended up tearing their lives apart.

These intertwining stories about romance and separation follow a firefighter who can't find the right time to propose, a shy theme park worker who falls for an artist, an estranged mother and son, and a man seeking to regain his lost love.

A man remembers his childhood memory of growing up with an annoying little sister in 1990s China. How would his life have been if things had gone differently?

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

Wang Tiemei, a single mother, loses her job and moves, befriending neighbor Xiaoye who appears cheerful but is depressed. Their bond grows as Tiemei navigates relationships with her ex-husband causing trouble.

A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.

A story about a karaoke-addicted old woman struggling with her self-worth and a sense of betrayal at her long-lost husband's funeral where she encounters his younger and more sophisticated girlfriend while she finds out her kids might have been secretly in touch with her late husband all these years.

A young couple is pushed to the limits of sanity as they attempt to be reunited amid the chaos of a pandemic outbreak. The streets erupt into violence and depravity, as those infected are driven to enact the most cruel and ghastly things imaginable.

A father says goodbye to his young daughter. In time the daughter grows old, but within her there is always a deep longing for her father.

When his girlfriend leaves for New York City on a 3-month-long internship, a strongly opinionated Berkeley arthouse movie theater manager begins exploring life as a bachelor.

Hong Kong native Lee Kay moves to NYC's Chinatown while attending college. When she learns that her boyfriend's cheating, her cousin comforts her.

Hsiao-Kang, now working as an adult movie actor, meets Shiang-chyi once again. Meanwhile, the city of Taipei faces a water shortage that makes the sales of watermelons skyrocket.

Shenxiu has felt a deep sadness since her mother left. A storm plunges her into a dreamlike world of swirling colour. Led by the Hyjinx, and joined by inventive underwater chef Nanhe, she embarks on a quest to find solace in the Eye of the Deep Sea.

A former DEA agent and a former undercover operative revisit their romance during a fateful weekend in Taipei, unaware of the dangerous consequences of their past.

Retired and widowed Chinese master chef Chu lives in modern day Taipei, with his three attractive daughters, all of whom are unattached. Soon, each daughter encounters a new man in their lives. When these new relationships blossom, stereotypes are broken and the living situation within the family changes.

A look at modern-day life in China's capital centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife.

Hong Kong 1997, where young people dream of love and death, suicide and murder. Moon is a cynical young debt collector, smitten by Ping, a young woman dying of kidney disease. A suicide note from a student they don't know ends up intertwining their fates.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

A Japanese assassin stranded in Taiwan must take work from a local crime boss to make ends meet when suddenly a woman from his past delivers a son to him.

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.

An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.

Jun arrives in Hong Kong from mainland China, hoping to be able to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend back home. He meets the streetwise Qiao and they become friends. As friendship turns into love, problems develop, and although they seem meant for each other they somehow keep missing out.

A seventeen-year-old country boy working in Beijing as a courier has his bicycle stolen, and finds it with a schoolboy his age.

Yueh-chen has an obsession with her classmate Shihao, but is too shy to confess to him directly. She sends in her best friend, Kerou, to act as a go-between, and Shihao ends up falling for Kerou, who is not sure what to think of him.

A group of close friends who attend a private school all have a debilitating crush on the sunny star pupil, Shen Chia-yi. The only member of the group who claims not to is Ko Ching-teng, but he ends up loving her as well.

An assassin goes through obstacles as he attempts to escape his violent lifestyle despite the opposition of his partner, who is secretly attracted to him.

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

The story of Hong Kong, from New Year's Day to June 30th, 1997, when the British left their colony and turned it over to the People's Republic of China.

Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.

After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself.

Ouyang Feng is a heartbroken and cynical man who spends his days in the desert, connecting expert swordsmen with those seeking revenge and willing to pay for it. Throughout five seasons in exile, Ouyang spins tales of his clients' unrequited loves and unusual acts of bravery.

At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking it up, he looks at it briefly before leaving. As the aeroplane takes off, he narrates the events that brought her into his life...

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.

Kurumi’s heart was broken by the sudden death of her boyfriend in a tragic airplane accident. By melding futuristic technology with the binary equivalent of human emotion, a brilliant scientist created an ultra-lifelike robotic surrogate to take Hal’s place – and lure Kurumi from her shroud of solitude.

A recovering drug addict is granted a day’s leave from rehab and returns to Oslo, where he reconnects with friends, faces the weight of his past, and struggles with uncertainty about his future. Over the course of one day, he drifts through encounters that reflect his longing for connection and his deep sense of alienation.

When Sanlian's ex-husband passes away, she discovers he has altered his insurance policy, cutting out their son in favor of a stranger named Jay.

Three high school students experience the perks and pitfalls of love in director Leste Chen’s sensitive tale of friendship and yearning.

An abandoned cat embarks on a journey to discover the most precious thing in the world.

An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

In an abandoned hospital in Tainan, a group of people came to try to communicate with the souls of their loved ones, only to be haunted by ominous supernatural phenomena.

19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars. She's an artist in her mid-thirties, and appears to have everything - not least a constant stream of men at her beck and call. But when the two finally meet, they discover that they have a lot more in common than appeared at first sight...

In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Dong-soo, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.

Although new friendships and new love await her, a college freshman discovers that university life is not as simple as she had hoped.

A long love story, seen through the memories of one young couple. The journey through the years of two individuals, united, divided, happy, unhappy, deeply in love, or in love with others, in a single stream of emotions and shades of feeling. Over the course of the film, he learns that love can indeed last, while she learns to live with nostalgia.

A young man of Chinese-Cambodian descent dies, leaving behind his isolated mother and his lover of four years. Though the two don't share a language, they grow close through their grief.

While decluttering her home, a woman's hefty house renovation leads her back to the past when she uncovers her ex-boyfriend's belongings.

After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.

A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.

In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.

A Russian poet, Andrei and his interpreter, Eugenia travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.

Ting-yin, a young novelist, is struggling to come up with a followup to her best-selling trilogy of romance novels. After drafting her first chapter, she stops and deletes the file from her computer. She then starts seeing strange, unexplainable things and finds that she is experiencing the supernatural events that she described in her novel-to-be.

A blind concert violinist gets a cornea transplant allowing her to see again. However, she gets more than she bargained for when she realizes her new eye can see ghosts. She sets out to find the origins of the cornea and discover the fate of its former host.

Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to be called Itsuki Fujii.

Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.

Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music.

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.

Carlos is a professionally frustrated screenwriter, and Irene is not sure what she wants to do with her life. When Irene meets Carlos at a coffee shop, she approaches him and, although she doesn't know him, proposes to play a game.

The passionate relationship between two men with unusual consequences. The film is divided in two parts. The first half charts the modest attraction between two men in the sunny, relaxing countryside and the second half charts the confusion and terror of an unknown menace lurking deep within the jungle shadows.

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.

A South Korean woman in her sixties enrolls in a poetry class as she grapples with her faltering memory and her grandson's appalling wrongdoing.

An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left.

In 1987, as martial law ends in Taiwan, Jia-han and Birdy fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia and social stigma.

Ten years ago, on a train home during the busy Spring Festival travel period, fate brings Xiaoxiao and Jianqing together. Like many young couples, they meet, fall in love, and strive to make it work, but eventually, the harsh realities of life make them drift apart. Ten years later, they run into each other again. Will they make the most of this second chance and rekindle what they once lost?

A depressed man moves back in with his parents following a recent heartbreak and finds himself with two women.

Two friends who haven't seen each other for thirteen years reunite. One is a successful concert pianist just back from a European tour and the other has just started a new business.

Aya Okamura has been working for two years and has begun living on her own for a job opportunity. With her mother working overseas as a doctor, her father is now living alone with the family's longtime pet cat Mii-san. One night, Aya returns from a long day at work, and as she rests on her bed, she reminiscences about the times the family had together. She remembers the sadness she felt when her mom went overseas, and the solace she felt when her father brought home Mii-san to give her comfort. Then, she receives a phone call.

Follows the life of a young woman who has become reserved and indifferent to the world as a result of her chronic illness deformed hand and quietly portrays the unconventional, yet endearing relationship between mother and daughter as well as the development of Min-ah as she is befriended by the high spirited and carefree photographer Young-jae who moves into their apartment complex.

Wei is nowhere to be found one day before his grandma returns from her own strange missing incident. Wei's girlfriend desperately searches for his whereabouts and discovers that a little girl in red followed them before their disappearance. Based on true events and long-circulating urban legend in Taiwan.

A girl mysteriously receives advice from her future self and as a result her group of friends, along with a newly arrived, troubled classmate, learn how to be better friends and a better community.

Three key events during three different time periods, in three seasons, and on three nights culminate to change the life of Zhang Dong Ling.

