The Daughter-in-law / La Belle-fille

by Steve Wang

1995 Selection

TAIWAN 1995 1h55

Feature Film

Adapted from Liaison the bestselling novel by Wang Ben-Hu. It is a “pas-de-trois” love story involving a Taiwanese war veteran Ah-Dee, his adopted son and his daughter-in-law. The story spans twenty years from Ah-Dee's service under Japanese command during World War II to his life as a bamboo farmer in the mid 1960’s in the mist-shrouded mountains of central Taiwan.
Traumatized by the war, Ah-Dee has been unable to marry. Hoping still to build a family, he adopts a son, Spring, then a woman, Tangerine, to marry his son. When Spring leaves for military service, Ah-Dee falls into a hopeless love with Tangerine, in a tale rich with dreams and nightmares and strange ironies of hates and love. As a result, his identity as a man could neither be found in the past nor in the future... This story reflects ironically the identity crisis of Taiwanese underJapanese rule as well as their suppression of desires.