A Borrowed Life Explained

A Borrowed Life is a 1994 Taiwanese film and the directorial debut of Wu Nien-jen.^{[1] [2]} The film depicts cultural and regime change in Taiwan.^[3]

The film's running time is 167 minutes.^[4] Reviews by Ken Eisner in Variety and Stephen Holden in The New York Times noted that the film was autobiographical and told largely from the perspective of director Wu Nien-jen as a child.^{[5] [6]} Eisner was critical of the film for its excessive focus on the father-son relationship, which left other characters' viewpoints unexplored.^[5] Chen Kuan-Hsing examined languages and dialects used in the film, linking differences to the cultural changes portrayed within, as Japanese rule was lifted and the Kuomintang assumed control of Taiwan.^[7]

Selected cast

• Tsai Chen-nan as Sega
• Kerris Tsai as Sega's wife
• Chung Yo-hong, Cheng Kwei-chung and Fu Jun as Wen Jian
• Peng Wan-chun as sister
• Lee Chuo-liang as brother
• Akio Chen as Nomu, Sega's neighbor
• as Sega's mother
• as Sega's father
• , Akiko, Nomu's wife
• Chen Shu-fang, Akiko's mother

Awards and reception

The film won the Grand Prize (Prize of the City of Torino for Best Film - International Feature Film Competition) at the Torino Film Festival in Italy, a FIPRESCI/NETPAC Award at the 1995 Singapore International Film Festival and the Silver Alexander Award as well as the FIPRESCI Prize (International Federation of Film Critics Award) at the 1994 Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece.^[8] It also received the Golden Horse Audience Choice Award.^[9]

Martin Scorsese considered A Borrowed Life the third best movie of the decade.^[10]

Notes and References

1. News: Jonathan Rosenbaum . Rosenbaum . Jonathan . A Borrowed Life . 7 December 2019 . Chicago Reader.
2. News: A Borrowed Life . 7 December 2019 . Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
3. Davis . Darrell W. . 2001 . Borrowing Postcolonial: Dou-san and the Memory Mine . Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities . 20 . 2 and 3 . 94–114 . 0277-9897.
4. News: Screening A Borrowed Life . 7 December 2019 . Museum of the Moving Image . September 28, 2014 . 7 December 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191207031821/http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2014/09/28/detail/a-borrowed-life . dead .
5. News: Eisner . Ken . A Borrowed Life . 27 August 2018 . Variety . 30 October 1994.
6. News: Holden . Stephen . Generation Gap for a Generation . 27 August 2018 . The New York Times . 29 March 1995.
7. Book: Chen . Kuan-Hsing . Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization . 2010 . Duke University Press . 9780822391692 . 124–135 .
8. Book: Lee. Daw-Ming. Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema. 2013. Scarecrow Press. Lanham, MD. 9780810879225. 415.
9. Liao . Chaoyang . Borrowed Modernity: History and the Subject in A Borrowed Life . Boundary 2 . 1997 . 24 . 3 . 225–245 . 10.2307/303714 . 303714.
10. Book: Berry . Michael . Speaking in Images . 2005 . Columbia University Press . 9780231133302 . vii–viii .