ABSTRACT
After years of steady decline in both production output and box office success for Taiwan's feature film industry, Wei Te-sheng's Cape No.7, Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, and Kano, which he produced but did not direct, have broken the drought. This chapter focuses on a particular factor that runs through all three of Wei's films so far and is not found so consistently in other commercial films full of local content – the Japanese colonial era. The absence of China in Wei's films is even more marked when one considers Cape No.7. Just about every other ethnic group including Western tourists is represented in the film, but not Chinese, although it is difficult to imagine a tourist spot like Hengchun without any mainland Chinese tourists today. The internal political system of Taiwan, transformed into a multi-party democracy, is relatively stable and well-accepted. However, in contrast with the recent past, close economic and social links with China have been established.
