It is this resigned sentiment of irrevocable separation that is reflected in the film’s sustained elegiac tone, observed by Bérénice Reynaud in her comment: “Overall, A City defines a vertiginous elliptical arc, which goes from one feeling of loss – the loss of Taiwan by the Japanese – to another – the loss of the mainland by the Kuomintang.” (1) Consequently, until the release of the film in 1989 (winning the Golden Lion at the 46th annual Venice International Film Festival on September 15, 1989), the difficult reality behind the evolution of a Taiwanese national identity that was inherently unique and culturally separate from the plight of mainland Chinese in the latter half of the 20th century was not a subject that was easily discussed or emotionally accepted.Ī City of SadnessIn 1947, the governing Chinese Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang, instituted a sweeping martial law in Taiwan aimed at suppressing leftist agitation that would remain in effect for 40 years. Released in the wake of the Tiananmen Square government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing during the summer of 1989, the contemporary relevance of A City of Sadness appeared destined to be inextricably connected to a greater encompassing ethnographic phenomenon of a collective Chinese experience, an ingrained cultural bond from which Taiwan has grown increasingly estranged through years of foreign occupation and isolation from the mainland. The apparent metaphor is then reinforced in the subsequent intertitles that reveal that the concubine of Lin Wen-heung (Chen Sown-yung) had given birth to a son whom they name Kang-ming, meaning ‘light.’ However, as the film chronicles the lives of the Lin family during the turbulent four years between the Japanese withdrawal from Taiwan after 51 years of occupation in 1945, to the secession of Taiwan from mainland China in 1949, the hopeful and optimistic tone of the film’s introductory sequence seemingly proves untenable. As the electricity is restored, the audible agony of the expectant mother gives way to the sound of a crying infant. The setting is then faintly illuminated by the warm glow of candles to reveal an anxious Taiwanese household that is preparing for the imminent birth of a child in the midst of a power failure.

A City Of Sadness opens with a credit sequence-shot of total darkness as the solemn voice of Emperor Hirohito is heard over a radio broadcast announcing the unconditional surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945.

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