Mirror Image (Ming Dai Zhui Zhu)

(2001, Taiwan, 35mm, 72 min.)

Director: Hsiao Ya-chuan
Cast: Lee Jiunn-jye, Fan Hsiao-fan, Era Wang, Yang Li-wei, Chu Dei-yuan
Awards: Best New Director (Hsiao Ya-chuan), Taipei Film Festival 2000, Best Asian Film, Vancouver International Film Festival 2001

Stylish, off-beat, and humorous, Hsaio Ya-chuan's feature film debut was the talk of the film festival circuit. After a scooter accident erases the lifeline on his left palm, a nurse tells Tung-ching that he will no longer be ruled by fate but by circumstance. His father has a stroke soon afterwards and Tung-ching is forced to take over the family's pawnshop. His girlfriend, Eiko, becomes interested in palm reading and feels that she will restore his future by recovering his pre-accident palm print. Tung-ching, meanwhile, believing his release from the hand of fate was a gift, begins an affair with a mysterious woman he calls, "I know."

Director's Biography

Born in 1967, Hsiao Ya-chuan studied at Taiwan's National Institute for the Arts. Since 1988 he has directed several short works on film and video, and worked as assistant director to Hou Hsiao-hsien on Flowers of Shanghai (1999). Mirror Image is his first feature film.

Critic's Corner

"Hsiao is known as one of the best young filmmakers in Taiwan and has taken a large step in broadening his recognition abroad with Mirror Image...."
- Yu Sen-Lun, Taipei Times

This is nothing like a Wong Kar-Wai movie in tone or style, but Mirror Image offers pleasures of a kind rarely seen since Chungking Express and Fallen Angels: charmingly flaky characters, romantic longings, droll obsessions, erotic-neurotic compulsions. It's very amusingly acted, too, especially by Lee Jiunn-Jye as the slothful reluctant pawnbroker. On this evidence, first-time writer-director Hsiao Ya-Chuan is the business."
- Tony Rayns, Rotterdam International Film Festival