The movie is based on Wu Nianzhen’s first love experience. Ah Yun and Ah Yuan, a young couple from a mountain village, graduated from junior high school and came to Taipei to work. After that, Ah Yuan enlisted in the army and served in the military, and Ah Yun, unable to cope with the loneliness, eventually fell in love with someone else and married the letter carrier who delivered letters for both of them every day.
The movie is very slow-paced, and looks like a promotional film for Taiwan’s scenery, with a lot of scattered content, documenting the hardships, bitterness, and warmth of life in the 1980s.
There is an interesting story about Ah Yuan’s military service, when a mainland fisherman’s boat ran aground, and the Taiwanese officers and soldiers treated some of the mainland fishermen, treating them very well and giving them gifts, which seems like a lifetime ago now.
1986 / Taiwan, China / Drama Romance / Hou Hsiao-hsien / Li Tianlu Xin Shufen
After graduating from junior high school, because his family is not allowed to, 15-year-old rural teenager Ah Yuan (Wang Jingwen) gives up his studies and comes to Taipei to work. He has his first taste of life’s hard work, but he still strives for his own ideals.
A year later, Ah Yun (Xin Shufen), Ah Yuan’s childhood sweetheart, also arrives in Taipei, and realizes that the reality of Taipei is a different world from the one described in Ah Yuan’s letter.
However, the difficult environment does not diminish their happiness because they have each other.
When Ah Yuan was serving in the army, Yun didn’t feel lonely in Taipei because of the letters that arrived daily.
However, after a long time, the paper appeals of distant lovers were no match for the whispers of a real-life boy, and with the fear of the future, Ah Yun chose to marry another woman before Ah Yuan was discharged from the army.
Although the heartbreak is there, Ah Yuan can only choose to suppress it.
