Betelnut Beauty (Ai ni ai wo)
(Taiwan, 2000, 35mm, 106 min.)
Director: Cheng-sheng Lin
Cast: Chen Chang, Sinje, Chen-Nan Tsai, Ming-chun Kao
Awards: Silver Bear for Best Director, Lin Cheng-Sheng, Berlin International Film Festival 2001, Piper Hiedsieck Award for Best New Talent, Sinje Angelica Lee), Berlin International Film Festival 2001
 In 21st Century Taipei, a restless city where young souls are set adrift, Feng and Fei-fei meet in a sudden summer afternoon thunderstorm. Feng, fresh out of the army, has just made a beeline for Taipei, eager to start a new life. Fei-fei has also recently turned a new page in her young life, having just run away from home. Fei-fei teams up with her friend, Yili, who works at a nightclub. They become "betelnut beauties" hawking their fare from a roadside stall of glass and neon. Betelnut, a legally sold chewing pepper that produces an effect not unlike marijuana, is a favorite among the working class men. Feng and Fei-fei quickly fall in love, two clueless souls clinging desperately to each other as they try to keep up with the punishing rush of city life.
 Betelnut Beauty is the second installment of Producer Peggy Chiao's latest project Tales Of Three Cities, a package of six feature films by directors from Beijing, Taipei, and Hong Kong. The aim of Chiao's series is to provide a new look at the changing China in different political regimes. Both the first installment , Wang Xiaoshuai's Beijing Bicycle and Betelnut Beauty were presented in competition at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival.
Director's Biography
Lin Cheng-sheng entered a directing/script writing workshop in 1986 while he was still working as a bread baker. In 1993, Lin secured a sponsorship from the National Film Year office for his 16mm short, The Family Treasure. The film won a government grant, enabling him to expand the short into his debut feature, A Drifting Life. Lin has made four feature films to date which have each garnered international acclaim: A Drifting Life (International Critics' Week, Cannes 1996), Murmur of Youth (Directors' Fortnight, Cannes 1997; Best Actress Award, Tokyo 1997; Special Jury Prize, Fukuoka Asian Film Festival, 1998), Sweet Degeneration (In competition, Berlin 1998) and March of Happiness (Un Certain Regard, Cannes 1999).
Director's Notes
"A couple of youngsters. They meet and they fall in love. In a metropolis like Taipei, they spend their youth with no reservations, looking towards a future of huge fortunes, a future in which they can do whatever they want. They have no idea that they're living in an environment that's moving towards danger. And it's often too late when they finally figure it out. Youth that has been spent will not return. Like many other kids of the city, they are molded by society."
- Cheng-sheng Lin
Interview With Lin Cheng-sheng
What is Betelnut? What is its significance in Taiwan culture?
Betelnut is a tropical plant found in many Asian countries and is consumed by many different people in many different ways. I read a report years ago about people in Hunan, China, who process them like sweet dates. But I don't think betelnuts have developed in other places like they have in Taiwan, where they have become a popular commodity and an important agricultural product.
Today, most chewers are from the lower or working classes, like construction workers, taxi drivers, because chewing keeps them awake. The habit is also popular among market vendors, laborers and underworld figures. Because most users are men, using "Betelnut Beauties" to sell the product becomes a common practice. These are young women, many of them under 20, who wear very heavy make-up and very little clothes. It therefore becomes connected with the sex trade. This is certainly intolerable to mainstream middle-class values and is the easiest target for a society with such values. But behind such moralistic attacks are efforts to consume these women's sexuality. This is especially true of television, which exploits them by using them to satisfy the voyeuristic desires of society. For the Beauties, the monthly income is high. This is especially attractive to girls with school or family problems. Together, the Beauties and the betelnut trade have created a bizarre subculture.
The increasing profit in the betelnut trade is also attractive to gangsters. They want a piece of the action, either through protection money or by directly operating businesses. Needless to say, they offer protection to the Beauties, but they also bring violence to the women's environment.
Farmers are also getting into the act, many giving up their usual crop and switching to betelnut. Much of the land in central and eastern Taiwan are now devoted to growing it. In some areas, you look at the landscape and all you see are mile after mile of betelnut farms. Such overgrowing in fact contributes to the soil runoff problems in Taiwan.
The betelnut subculture tells us a lot about Taiwanese society. After the lifting of martial laws, Taiwan became Democratic and free so quickly that the government was unable to handle it.
The male lead is from the country and he has a veteran card. Can you tell us something about his background?
Perhaps because I'm from the country, I have always been interested in the relationship between country people and the city. In the film, the man's frame of mind living in Taipei is a projection of my frame of mind when I first came to Taipei. I came here when I was 16 and was seduced by the prosperity of the city. I naively dreamed of making big money in this city, becoming famous, even returning home gloriously. I projected that frame of mind onto the character, but the rest is entirely fictional.
Other than that frame of mind, I didn't focus on his country background, because his time is very different from mine. When I came to the city, Taiwan was still under martial law and the differences between the country and the city are great. Back then the city was an unreachable dream for a country kid. But for the kid in the film, the city is no longer so remote. Also, he had already lived in Taipei for a while as a bakery apprentice before serving in the military. He knows the city quite well when he returns from service and he is able to project his dreams onto it.
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