Underplayed Gems

Strawman (1987)

Strawman poster
Original title
稻草人
Directed by
Wang Toon
Genre
drama film
Country
Taiwan
Runtime
1h 34m
Rating
7.1 of 10 from 16 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A poor farming family in rural Taiwan during World War II tries to survive under Japanese colonial rule. They struggle with daily hardships and a ridiculous situation after finding an unexploded bomb.

comicbleakhistoricalslow-burnpoignantgroundedwryatmospheric

What happens

Directed by Wang Toon (王童; aka Wang Tong), Strawman is a Taiwanese film released in 1987. It is the first feature of Wang's “Taiwan Trilogy,'' which also includes Banana Paradise (香蕉天堂; 1989) and Hill of No Return (無言的山丘; 1992). The film adopts a comic tone to depict the hardships of life as colonizers in rural Taiwan at the height of WWII. Though not an adaptation from nativist novel like Wang's acclaimed A Flower in The Raining Night (看海的日子; 1983), which is based on the namesake novel by Huang Chun Ming (黃春明), Strawman’s poor farmer family at Yilan’s Shuanglian Pi and the ridiculous journey to deliver an unexploded bomb are depicted very much in the style of Huang's nativist literature. The film won the Best Feature Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in The 24th Golden Horse Awards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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