Taipei Story

Taipei Story (Chinese: 青梅竹馬) is a 1985 Taiwanese drama film co-written and directed by Edward Yang.

It stars Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Chin and follows the grinding relationship of Ah-lung and Ah-chen, who have known each other since childhood in Taipei.

It is doomed to fail because Ah-lung cannot forget about the past while Ah-chen is eager to embrace the future as Taipei undergoes modernization and globalization.

Her boss, Mrs. Mei, leaves the company but does not have a new job for Ah-chen, forcing her to quit when faced with becoming a mere secretary.

She is determined to leave the confining family as soon as possible and rents an apartment away from the house, giving a spare set of keys to Ah-lung, her childhood sweetheart.

Ah-lung is a conservative and generous person who remains nostalgic about his past glory of winning the Little League World Series and goes out of his way to help Ah-chen's father pay back his debts, help his impoverished baseball teammate get his gambling wife to return home, and help his former lover Ah-gwan settle her divorce lawsuit.

One night, Ah-chen sees the young man in front of her apartment building and goes to the karaoke bar to call Ah-lung for help.

Unaware of Ah-lung's death, Ah-chen accompanies Mrs. Mei to inspect a new office space for the local branch of a US electronic company she plans to set up.

[5] Hou Hsiao-hsien, who is the leading actor in the film and one of the representative directors of Taiwan's new wave cinema,[6] used to be a friend of Yang.

Hou's performance in Taipei Story was his first acting experience on screen and earned him a nomination for Best Leading Actor at the 22nd Golden House Awards.

He fell short for the award, which was granted to Hong Kong actor Donald Chow Yun Fat (周潤發), who received one more vote than him from the juries.