MCLC: The Boar King

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: The Boar King
***********************************************************

Source: Taipei Times (3/21/14):
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2014/03/21/2003586164

After the storm
Kuo Chen-ti’s latest film looks at loss, pain and healing through a
touching story inspired by Typhoon Morakot
By Ho Yi  /  Staff reporter

=====================================
The Boar King (山豬溫泉)
Directed by: Kuo Chen-ti (郭珍弟)
Starring: Lu Yi-ching (陸弈靜) as Cho, Tsai Chen-nan (蔡振南) as Nan, Wu
I-ting 
(吳伊婷) as Fen, Soda Voyu as Garmin
Running time: 102 minutes
Language: Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles
Taiwan release: now playing
====================================

Grief and healing take central stage in Kuo Chen-ti’s (郭珍弟) new film, The
Boar King (山豬溫泉), which tells a deceptively quiet story of loss and
rebirth inspired by the traumatic events when Typhoon Morakot devastated
southern Taiwan in 2009. While it could have easily been made into a work
of lachrymose sentimentality, the film thankfully doesn’t go in that
direction. Instead, it looks at human suffering and pain with considerable
restraint, buttressed by solid performances of Lu Yi-ching (陸弈靜) and Tsai
Chen-nan (蔡振南).

Set in Baolai (寶來) in Greater Kaohsiung’s Liouguei Township (六龜), the
film 
opens with home video footage of torrential flooding caused by Typhoon
Morakot, as the off-screen cameraman witnesses the catastrophe in awe. The
man’s name is Ying — played by Chen Mu-i (陳慕義) — who later disappears.

The widowed wife, Cho (Lu Yi-ching, 陸弈靜), is left with a hot spring lodge
that barely survives the disaster. Seized by despair, Cho attempts and
fails to commit suicide, having thought of her responsibility for Ying’s
senile father, who lives with her. One day, Ying’s close friend Nan (Tsai
Chen-nan, 蔡振南), a hunter, shows up at Cho’s door, offering to help
rebuild 
the mountain inn. A reticent man, Nan has kept his tender feeling toward
Cho for years.

Ying’s death also brings back Cho’s step-daughter Fen (Wu I-ting, 吳伊婷),
who works mundane jobs in the city. Amid grief, she meets land surveyor
Garmin, played by Soda Voyu from Seediq Bale (賽德克巴萊), and love starts
to 
bud between the two.

Meanwhile, the villagers are forced to leave the devastated area, selling
their homes to a resort development company. But one by one, they receive
invitations sent by Ying before he died to a banquet set to be held at the
inn. Perplexed, Cho looks to the home videos shot by her late husband,
hoping to unravel the secret of his death.

Five years after her less than satisfactory debut feature Step by Step (練戀
舞
), Kuo has returned here with a finely executed and honest work filled
with lyrical moments. The polished cinematography by Paotao (寶島) allows
for the full expression of nature, whether a collapsed mountain slope, a
riverbed studded with massive rocks, lush woods and hidden trails.

At times, sequences from the home videos shot by Chen’s character are
inserted in and fused with the present narration, not only providing clues
to the man’s thinking and his mysterious disappearance, but serving a link
that enables the living to search for and reconnect with the dead and to
come to terms with their grief.

The daughter’s reconnection with her father also raises the issue of land
and homecoming. “The mountain road to home is no longer obstructed, don’t
you think?” she says to her lover. However, much of the film’s failing
lies in its rather flaccid effort to explore the young woman’s
transformation. Her off-screen narration appears superfluous, adding
nothing significant to the story, and theater actress Wu delivers the role
with punctuated intensity that sometimes belongs to the stage rather than
in front of the camera.

The crowning moments in The Boar King ultimately belong to veteran
thespians Lu and Tsai. In a scene toward the end, Nan recounts an
unforgettable encounter with a wild boar to Cho. We follow Nan’s resonant
voice into the woods, where hot spring water flows, lives are intertwined
and life quietly goes on.