My Favorite Season (最想念的季節)
This classic romantic comedy was a groundbreaking feminist critique of Taiwan’s patriarchal status quo
CHEN KUN-HOU MINI-RETROSPECTIVE
Taiwan | Drama | 1985 | 99 minutes
In Mandarin w/ English Subtitles
Director: Chen Kun-hou
Screenwriter: Hou hsiao-hsien, Chu tien-wen, Ding yah-min, Hsu Shu-chen
Cast: Sylvia Chang, Lee Tsung-sheng, Wu nien-jen
Film Source: Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute
Admission Free. RSVP is required.
SYNOPSIS:
Mei is carrying a child from an extramarital affair and needs a “husband” to play the father. She sees the peculiar Liang, who has never been in a relationship, as an ideal partner and asks him to help her. Despite Liang’s initial reservations, they start living together.
Based on co-writer Chu Tien-wen’s novel, Chen’s offbeat urban romantic comedy was groundbreaking in its non-judgmental and progressive approach towards love and marriage, which went against prevalent patriarchal traditions. Chen’s evocative images of 1980s Taipei also served as a major influence on how later New Taiwan Cinema films captured the burgeoning metropolis.
Chen Kun-hou, Director
Chen Kun-hou (陳坤厚) is a veteran cinematographer, who started his career in the 1960s. He won his first best cinematography award at Golden Horse Awards in 1978 for He Never Gives Up (汪洋中的一條船), directed by Lee Hsing (李行). In the early 1980s he began to direct his own films in collaboration with Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢). After series of urban comedies, he made quite a few representative films of the Taiwan New Cinema, such as Growing Up (小畢的故事; 1983), which won him the best director award at the Golden Horse Awards, His Matramony (結婚; 1985), which won him the second best cinematography award at Golden Horse Awards, and My Favorite Season (最想念的季節; 1985), and Osmanthus Alley (桂花巷; 1987). He is awarded for his life achievement in Taiwan cinema at the 60th Golden Horse Awards in 2023.
Screening Date:
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Showtime:
2:30 PM
Doors open 30 minutes before screening.
Location:
Culture Center of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago
55 E 63rd St
Westmont, IL 60559
