During a break in his studies, Ming (Tung Ming-hsiang) has decided to cycle from the southern port of Kaohsiung counter-clockwise round Taiwan's coast, with no other reason than to do it (as he tells one person) while he still has the chance. Seven-day journey, paragraphed by time captions and extracts from his journal, takes him up through Hualien
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Starring: Tung Ming Hsiang, Yang Li Yin, Xu Xiao Shun
Full Summary:During a break in his studies, Ming (Tung Ming-hsiang) has decided to cycle from the southern port of Kaohsiung counter-clockwise round Taiwan's coast, with no other reason than to do it (as he tells one person) while he still has the chance. Seven-day journey, paragraphed by time captions and extracts from his journal, takes him up through Hualien on the east coast and then down the west coast. He goes through no cities, and is almost always within sight of the sea. Vignettes en route include a film crew whose loquacious director (Teng An-ning) is shooting some Fellini-esque fable; a young biker (Yuen-lun) from Canada who's visiting his mom (Chen Hsiu-hui) in the process of divorce; a beautiful Lithuanian model (Ruta Palionyte) who needs help catching a train; a teacher (co-producer Yang) taking early retirement from a primary school; and a bus driver (Wu Nien-chen, a key scripter of the '80s New Wave) taking some oldies on an excursion.
Ming, it turns out, has been almost deaf since childhood and, despite using a hearing aid, speaks with a garbled accent. His closest friend is his guitar, and his personality has an upbeat innocence that makes him a perfect listener as he bounces from one encounter to another. Encounters touch on a number of aspects of contempo Taiwan society -- children, family, environment, memories, superstition, visual arts...
"Unrated. This film is not yet rated."
