The 2020 top-grossing Taiwanese local movie “Lone Taste” stars actors Sun Ke Fang (from left), Hsieh Ying Hsu, Winnie Hsu, Chen Shu Fang and Chen Yan Kary as a family. (Courtesy of Nuctech Films)
“Lone Taste is all about ‘the one and only taste’, making a dish properly and doing it well. Many snack stores in Taiwan just write the name of a dish, its sign.” In an interview with Voice of America, the director of the film “Lone Taste”, Hsu Cheng-Chieh, said that it is a pride to do only one thing well in life, but there must also be an element of loneliness in it.
The film is based on Grandma Lin Xiuying (played by Chen Shufang), who raised her three daughters by selling shrimp rolls, and tells the story of her 70th birthday party, when her daughters return home to Tainan to celebrate her birthday. But in the process of planning the funeral, the old woman also learns about the life problems faced by her three daughters (played by Ying-Hsuan Hsieh, Roxanne Hsu, and Ke-Fang Sun), which makes her look back at her own life and marital grievances, and thus gradually let go of them.
This family film, based on a true story, is a favorite among Taiwanese audiences. It was not only recognized by the 57th Golden Horse Awards with six finalists, but also by Chen Shufang, who played the role of Grandma Xiuying, who won the Golden Horse Best Actress Award. Within two months of its release, the film has grossed over NT$180 million (US$6.26 million), making it the best-selling Taiwanese film of 2020.
A Taste of Solitude” tells the story of not just a single Taiwanese family, but every Taiwanese who walks into the theater can find a microcosm of their family life in it. In an interview with the Voice of America at the Asia New Media Summit held in Taipei on December 22nd, Wu Ming-hsien, the first investor in “Lone Taste” and chairman of Nuctech Films, said, “When I saw “Lone Taste,” I saw my life experience, that is, these women around me, these stories seem to happen in our family.”
After graduating from New York University’s Graduate School of Filmmaking in the United States, 34-year-old Taiwanese director Hsu Cheng-Chieh adapted his grandmother’s story into the film “Lone Taste”. (Photo by Min-Yi Lee, Voice of America)
Taiwanese stubbornness: to “fight for that breath”
“My grandmother did have a funeral ceremony with my grandfather’s lover back then.” Director Hsu Cheng-Chieh said that this is a story that really happened in the plot of the movie.
He said that his grandmother was unable to calm her grievances and forgive her grandfather who had left home for many years. On the morning of the farewell ceremony, his grandmother called Hsu’s mother and said she did not want to attend his farewell ceremony, so she asked his lover to attend; years later, by chance, his grandmother confessed to Hsu that the phone call she made was actually in the hope that someone would persuade her to go. “By the time my grandmother told us this, I felt that she should have thought it through, she felt that the incident was all behind her.”
“Many traditional women, in fact, many times carry a lot of pain and trauma, all just to ‘fight for that breath’. I want to prove to you that it’s all your fault, and I’m trying hard to make this family work.” Hsu Cheng-Chieh said, “The symbol of those suffering, and that great praise outside, what they really think in their hearts? The movie is always about this.”
“I think the fight for breath is quite Taiwanese, that there is good, that is also very important, there is that to have a lot of inspirational success stories in Taiwan, but the fight for breath other than the other parts, have you taken a good look at some of the emotions inside yourself?” He said.
“We’re really just scared and worried that people will think that (it) seems to be a very old-school, this kind of proper palace fighting a mistress (story).” The key to “Taste of Solitude” screenwriter Huang Yimei told Voice of America that the key to Grandma Xiuying’s journey through this gradual letting go is not her relationship with her husband’s lover, but her relationship with her inner self, her relationship with her daughter.
Chen Shufang (far right), who plays Grandma Xiuying, gets together with Xie Yingxuan (far left), who plays her eldest daughter, Sun Ke Fang (second from left), who plays her youngest daughter, and Xu Ruoxuan (second from right), who plays her second daughter, to have a big fight in the “Taste of Solitude” movie. (Courtesy of Nuctech Films license)
That’s why, the most conflicting scene in the movie takes place between Grandma Xiuying and her daughters. When Grandma Xiuying expresses her grievances to her daughters, “I’ve worked all my life to raise you, but I lost to a father who hasn’t contacted you in 20 years!” She was greeted by the words of her eldest daughter who wanted her to let go: “Dad is dead, what you need to do now is to let go, you know?
“In 2020, Taiwan’s gender perspective has come to another level of progress, but in the face of our previous generation of women, I cannot and should not impose a new era of values, a progressive gender perspective on her, asking her to accept it, asking her to change in an instant.” Huang Yimei said, “We are not asking Lin Xiuying to be a role model, we are not trying to do that, but we are telling you, we want to show you that there is such a person who has gone such a mile.”
“The spirit of contemporary feminism is actually in respecting everyone as a human being, your spiritual and physical freedom, and it’s actually in pursuit of that.” Chuang Chia-Ying, associate professor of Taiwanese language and literature at Taiwan Normal University, said in an interview with Voice of America that both the character of Grandma Hsiu-Ying and her three daughters are ultimately pursuing such freedom.
Wang Shi, the director of the leading monkey integrated marketing company, which has been engaged in the marketing and promotion of Taiwanese films for years, told Voice of America, “There are very, very many women, even middle and high age women, who may not have been in the theater for five or ten years, or even longer, and because of ‘Lone Taste’ she is willing to go into the theater, and she feels that her life has been told, or her emotions have been healed. “
Chen Shufang (right), who plays Xiuying’s grandmother, calls out to her dead husband’s lover (played by Ding Ning), who is wearing a green and blue coat, “Miss Cai!” (Courtesy of Nuctech Films)
What is “Taiwanese flavor”? The pursuit of local values
This film will make Taiwanese audiences feel so close to everyday life, not only in terms of emotions, but also in the cultural and linguistic levels, revealing the “Taiwanese flavor” and “Tainan flavor” in detail, presenting the most real life of Taiwanese people.
“We in Taiwan actually have some imagination about what is local, or what is Taiwan.” Chuang Chia-Ying admits that it is difficult to define the taste of Taiwan, perhaps only by deleting the method to describe: “For example, you say (Taipei City’s) Zhongxiao East Road, what is the taste of Taiwan? Not oh. But you say (Taipei) Longshan Temple, yes, it seems to be more Taiwanese flavor. Then if you say (Tainan) Chikan Building, Anping Fortress, super Taiwanese flavor! And then the shrimp roll, it’s the food itself, it’s also a choice.”
From the perspective of food culture, just like the title of the movie “Lone Taste”, the handmade shrimp rolls that Grandma Xiuying made throughout her life and that she relied on to support her family are the representative of Tainan’s local flavor. Chuang Chia-Ying said, “Food or the dining table, as a medium for interpersonal and intimate interaction, is also a theme often borrowed from Taiwanese society and Taiwanese films.”
Grandma Xiuying in the film “Lonely Taste” has raised her three daughters by selling shrimp rolls all her life. (Courtesy of Nuctech Films)
Hsu Cheng-Chieh explained that there is a traditional food in Taiwan called “chicken rolls”, which does not refer exclusively to rolls wrapped in chicken meat, but comes from the harmonization of the Taiwanese words “chicken” and “more”, referring to the fact that many Taiwanese families take the leftovers from the previous night and make them into rolls, meaning “rolls with more leftovers”; and since Tainaners used to be more affluent, they put in shrimp, which is why chicken rolls have become shrimp rolls.
“If you watch this movie, you will have some common feeling, just like this shrimp roll, or like this chicken roll, every family has a similar story, just the feeling of bread is not the same. He said.
On the level of cultural customs, the movie scene of the Tainan Lule Gate Tin Hau Temple in the drama also deeply expresses Taiwan’s folk beliefs. Hsu Cheng-Chieh said, “A-Ma is a very Tainan, very Taiwanese priesthood, and then she is a female deity, like many of our family members are worshippers of A-Ma, I think there is a different emotion in that.”
“I personally think the most Taiwanese flavor is the wedding and funeral celebrations, so including the opening of Xiuying’s birthday banquet, and then the process of organizing the funeral ceremony of various rituals.” Huang Yimei added that the differences in Taiwan’s Buddhist or Taoist rituals for funerals, the tradition of folding paper lotus flowers, the “first seven days” ceremony seven days after the death, and other customs can be seen in the film.
Grandma Xiuying with her daughter and granddaughter folding paper lotus flowers in the funeral hall. (Courtesy of Nuctech Films)
In terms of language, the film also uses Taiwanese (Minnan) for up to 80% of the film.
“Because that’s how the elders in my own family communicate, so since it’s going to be relatively realistic, I don’t think all the Chinese that we’re speaking is more in line with the real situation.” Hsu said that they wanted to produce a relatively “elegant” drama with Taiwanese pronunciation, so they hired a Taiwanese instructor to help the actors learn the local Taiwanese accent in Tainan City.
In the film, when the three generations of the family get together, Grandma Xiuying, who is 70 years old and an older generation of Taiwanese, speaks mainly in Taiwanese; the daughters, who work in the city in their 30s and 40s, are used to the Chinese (Mandarin) spoken in the city, but communicate with their elders in a mix of Chinese and Taiwanese when they return home; and the younger generation of teenage granddaughters, who understand some Taiwanese, but communicate mainly in Chinese.
According to Chuang Chia-Ying, the use of Taiwanese in “Lone Taste” highlights the pursuit of local values in Taiwan in recent years, especially since the 2008 film “Cape Seven” directed by Wei Desheng, the local awareness of young Taiwanese directors has become increasingly important. “It’s this political tug-of-war atmosphere between China and Taiwan, and I think the pursuit of subjectivity (in Taiwan) will become is the mainstream for probably the next few years, and this tone should not change.”
Hsu Cheng-Chieh said that Taiwan’s local emotions will still be at the core of his creation, which is why he chose to adapt his family’s story as his first film work. “Today you want people to have a sense of empathy, and what has a sense of empathy must not be something that only Taiwan will have, because people all over the world will have a sense of empathy. So how do you turn that most local, or most localized, those things, our common emotions, into something that is worthy of being seen in the theater, I think that would be something that I have been looking for creatively.”
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