Movie review: Winds of September
Winds of September (九降風) is a new Taiwanese film directed by Tom Shu-Yu Lin (林書宇). The movie, set in Xinzhu in 1996, focuses on a group of seven friends at high school. The film is a teenage drama much in the style of Summer's Tail and Eternal Summer which I reviewed earlier. The serious themes and good acting make it similar in quality to the Eternal Summer.
The seven boys form a tight knit gang lead by Yen. They drink beer, smoke cigarettes and ride motorbikes: behaviour pretty much typical of teenagers. The movie is focused on exploring the nature of their friendships and how they change through time.
Although this is predominantly a film about male relationships, the role played by Xiao Yun (Yen's girlfriend) is interesting. Just as the boys struggle to come to terms with the world and their expectations, Xiao Yun struggles to break free from her relationship with Yen. Tang, Yen's best friend, fancies Xiao Yun but never has the courage to tell her. In the end Xiao Yun shows more courage than Tang in dealing with the relationship. I think it shows the difficulties both men and women face in their gender roles.
Baseball also forms a backdrop to the story as the boys follow the games. Simultaneously the story about gambling and match fixing breaks. Liao Min-hsiung (廖敏雄), one of the baseballers who was involved in the match fixing also plays a small part in the film. The boys subsequently losing interest in baseball also mirrors the changing nature of their friendships.
Hong Kong star Eric Tsang (曾志偉) was a producer and also appears in the film. He has been inspired to produce two more films based on similar themes — one in China and one in Hong Kong.
The film was well made with a good tight script. And I am sure it will appeal to Taiwanese teenagers and twenty-somethings.
Links
- Official movie blog
- Winds of September – trailer @ YouTube
- Graduation day – Taipei Times review
- Lin Shu-yu hits a home run – Taipei Times interview
- Lin explores loss of innocence in film 'Winds of September' – Taiwan News/culture.tw interview
10th Taipei Film Festival
2008 Golden Horse Film Festival
Taiwanese cinema resurgent in 2008
2007 at the movies
Movie review: Island Etude
Posted: June 6th, 2008 under Movies, Taiwan.
Comments
Comment from David Reid
Time 28 November 2008 at 8:42 am
moviefan, I highly recommend Eternal Summer which was mentioned in this review. I can’t think of any other good ones in a similar genre.
Comment from george
Time 29 November 2008 at 12:14 pm
there was so little closure. what happened to sheng? I wanted him to get with the half asian half white girl…
Comment from moviefan
Time 30 November 2008 at 5:01 am
David Reid,
I watched Eternal Summer too, great movie. I guess I’ll wait for the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the Winds of Septembers to come out.
Comment from Chichi
Time 30 November 2008 at 4:57 pm
Eternal Summer was an AMAZING movie. Currently I am downloading Summer’s Tail, also.
I was wondering where to download Winds Of September? (not in .RAR files though, please.)
THANK YOU!
Comment from David Reid
Time 30 November 2008 at 7:48 pm
Chichi, I am glad you appreciate the movies, but please try to rent or buy them rather than downloading. If you are outside Taiwan then you can purchase most of these movies via YesAsia.com.
Comment from Chichi
Time 1 December 2008 at 4:46 am
I cannot rent/buy them because I am outside of Taiwan and also have no way of purchasing anything online. Thank you, anyways.
Comment from moviefan
Time 1 December 2008 at 6:30 am
Chichi,
There’s an online community that has a lot of foreign (Asian) films for download, but seeing as this is not my blog, and I don’t want to break any rules about giving out links to downloaded movies, etc. If anything just search Google, you’ll eventually find the site.
Comment from moviefan
Time 27 November 2008 at 11:59 pm
I love these types of movies, do you have any other suggestions?