“In the Dark Places, Getting Burned”: Portrayals of Street Culture in Taiwan Cinema Today

James Wicks

doi:10.1515/jcfs-2021-0022

Article

“In the Dark Places, Getting Burned”: Portrayals of Street Culture in Taiwan Cinema Today

James Wicks
James Wicks, Professor of Film Studies, grew up in Taiwan and teaches Narrative and Documentary Film, World Cinema, Scriptwriting, and Intro. to TV and Film Production in San Diego, California. In addition to film articles, his manuscripts include Transnational Representations: The State of Taiwan Film in the 1960s and 1970s (HKUP, 2014) and An Annotated Bibliography of Taiwan Film Studies (Columbia UP, 2016), co-authored with Jim Cheng and Sachie Noguchi.

Published/Copyright: October 13, 2021

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From the journal Journal of Chinese Film Studies Volume 1 Issue 2

Abstract

Street culture is represented in two mid-2010 Taiwan films, The Kids (Xiaohai, 2015) and Thanatos, Drunk (Zui sheng meng shi 2015), in such stunning and beautiful ways that this essay sets out to etch each of them not only into the annals of Taiwan’s most memorable urban films ever made, but also position them as essential texts within the emergent field of street culture more broadly. Both movies depict physical and ideological boundaries that separate urban spaces from Taiwanese culture at large, and reveal the extent to which their young protagonists are perceived as “abnormal” even as they use street literacy in sophisticated ways to interact with formal actors (such as school teachers and the police) and informal actors (such as hooligans and petty criminals). These two films arguably present the best vantage point to understand the peripheral status of Taiwan’s urban young people who do not conform to hegemonic norms.

Keywords: Taiwan cinema; street culture; film studies; cultural studies

Corresponding author: James Wicks, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA, USA, E-mail: jameswicks@pointloma.edu

About the author

James Wicks

James Wicks, Professor of Film Studies, grew up in Taiwan and teaches Narrative and Documentary Film, World Cinema, Scriptwriting, and Intro. to TV and Film Production in San Diego, California. In addition to film articles, his manuscripts include Transnational Representations: The State of Taiwan Film in the 1960s and 1970s (HKUP, 2014) and An Annotated Bibliography of Taiwan Film Studies (Columbia UP, 2016), co-authored with Jim Cheng and Sachie Noguchi.

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Published Online: 2021-10-13

Published in Print: 2021-11-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0022

Keywords for this article

Taiwan cinema; street culture; film studies; cultural studies