Story 3 — "Taipei 2005"

Setting

Urban Taipei.

Questions for the third session:

THREETIMES(3)-1. [This question can be answered even if you have seen only Story 3 but probably has a better answer if you keep Story 2 in mind.] Is the song Jing sings a metaphor about the status of Taiwan? In other words, is the director giving Taiwan advice? We ask this as a romantic question, since the status of the Jing-Zhen couple turns on the issue of identity and mutual xin (信) or lack of it. Here's the lyrics:

Please open your eyes / Open your ears / Check your brain / To realize what you want / To realize who you are
No one can decide / How you feel / Don't be afraid / To liberate deep inside your mind
The color which you've seen / The shape which you're in / May reveal the secret / You've never know before
So celebrate / When you're honest to yourself
So celebrate / When you've no need to disregard how you feel
So celebrate / When you feel different from me
Let's celebrate / When we've no need to tell lies / And hide

Scene summaries — DVD menu scenes 14-18 1:21:37-2:06:37, elapsed time 0:45)

Note: All scene summaries for all movies were made by me, usually fairly quickly while viewing the film in real time and typing as it happens. There are bound to be errors. I remind students of the extra credit offer described at the scene summary section of the page "House of Flying Daggers-Module 01".

Story Three: Taipei, 2005 "A Time for Youth" (青春夢)

DVD Scene 14 (1:21:38)

Opens with Chen and Jing on a motorcycle driving through an urban scene; Jing is hanging on tightly, and is very afraid He stops under a bridge. (Actually, she is either having a paic attack or is close to having an epileptic fit).

They go to Chen's narrow, somewhat dark apartment, one where a wall is covered with photographs. Jing checks her cell phone, reads something on it, and then makes a call: "Mom, did you just call? ... I see" While she is calling, Chen looks out the window (perhaps he does not believe it is "Mom"). They are close to each other; Jing covers one of her eyes and one of his eyes. They are in a little bit of a hurry to make love.

fade through black

Jing comes out in robe, looks at apartment, lights a cigarette. She looks at phtographs on the wall, her face lit by a flourescent light she carries. Now Chen comes to the hallyway, too. They look at photos on wall together (many are pictures of women, with a bleak feel to them). No sound during these moments. She invites him to kiss her and he does.

DVD scene 15 (1:30:48)

Chen gets on motorcycle, picks Jing up from a small shopping arcade in the evening/night. (The transition to the next scene is a bit quick; these are different locations, different moments, with some time lapse between them).

Chen is at work (a photo-processing small business). He picks up a simple dinner from a noodle place and eats while looking at a computer monitor with some women's faces including Jing's which is wrapped in plastic over her mouth. (It is unclear what happened to Jing in the cut between these two scenes). On screen:

"Born premature
Showed up too early
I pay a high price for that
Broken bones.
A hole in my heart.
Epilepsy.
My right eye is almost blind.
A yen sign is branded on my throat.
Name your price.
I want to sell my soul.
No past, no future.
Just a greedy present."

Music track ("Please open your eyes ...") fades in.

Shifts to Jing on stage getting ready to sing, then singing. This is the first music track in this segment. Her lyrics:

Please open your eyes
Open your ears
Check your brain
To realize what you want
To realize who you are
No one can decide
How you feel
Don't be afraid
To liberate deep inside your mind
The color which you've seen
The shape which you're in
May reveal the secret
You've never know before
So celebrate
When you're honest to yourself
So celebrate
When you've no need to disregard how you feel
So celebrate
When you feel different from me
Let's celebrate
When we've no need to tell lies
And hide

Chen was in the audience watching, with another woman ("Blue"), when this song began. During the song, he gets up on the stage to take Jing's picture while she sings, as do other men. The other woman leaves unhappily part way through this process.

While the same music continues, Chen is scrubbing the floor of his apartment, looking tired or troubled.

Music ends. Sound of flushing.

A woman (his girlfriend "Blue") comes out of the bathroom and steps past/over him quickly and coolly (we see only her legs). While Chen sits on the floor taking pictures of Jing's necktag that she often (always?) wears (he tries wearing it himself). The tag informs: "I have epilepsy, don't take me to a hospital, put me in a safe warm place" (paraphrased).

Chen hears Blue leaving. He jumps up and runs outside. Blue is walking quickly and angrily away. They sort of reconcile with him just hugging her (though she resists and complains half-heartedly).

DVD scene 16 (1:43:07)

Switch to a seedy bar scene with loud music (that nearly drowns out the dialogue of this scene). Jing looks down from a balcony, smoking. (Her girlfriend Micky seems to work at this bar. She is down below.) Then, in the bathroom the two begin a lover's quarrel. Jing hasn't answered her phone or called back. There is definitely a trust issue between them. (Probably in an early scene of the movie when Jing was on the phone asking her "mother" if she called, that was this lover.)

Girl and Jing leave and walk through the streets to Jing's apartment (or, rather, the apartment she shares with her mother and maybe grandmother). When Jing is hanging up her coat on the veranda her text message signal rings. Chen says Jing left her epileptic badge and that he has the photos, too, and will show her tomorrow. When her girlfriend Micky goes to make a bath for them, after some desultory small talk and lighting candles (it is not a very satisfying conversation), Jing secretly emails Chen from her desktop computer. (The camera shot is tight to the screen and emphasizes the selection of Chinese characters while typing):

The picture which you took
before the smile of gray eyes
may rest, such cruel sound
It's still vivid like a bird

Shot opens panning from Micky in bed in Jing's apartment to Jing sitting at her computer under headphones. Ming's mother (?) says that grandmother has left some soup and goes to bring it to her. Jing get something from her bag in the room where Micky sleeps (looks at her but doesn't disturb her and seems rather bored with her). Jing smokes and the "Gray Eyes" sound track begins (with the Garage Band graphic —generator of the song—computer screen scrolling past.) It seems ominous.

Garageband music continues into the next scene.

DVD scene 17 (1:53;09)

JIng is waiting on a street corner. Music track continues. Chen brings Jing the photos (a fat envelope of them—she flips through them) and necklace, though he was late (and called but Jing didn't answer the phone). Jing says that she wants to go to his place; they get on his motorcycle and maybe Jing is less afraid this tim.e

fade through black

(Music continues:) They arrive at his apartment and as soon at they are in the door they begin to make love.

DVD scene 18 (1:56:24)

Micky wakes up looking for Jing who is not there. Micky checks Jing's forgotten phone, sees that there is a missed call (from Chen—see Scene 16) and tries to call the number but no answer. Micky seems to have hit her limit. Micky then sits at the computer to pound out a very long, angry good-bye note, which reads in part:

"I love you more than you love me; you'll regret this, I'll kill myself like your ex-girlfriend did!!!!"

Jing returns to the her apartment by taxi and is surprised that her girlfriend is gone. She looks around, checks the computer and reads Micky's note. Jing checks her cell phone which she had left and realizes what happened (that Micky knows Jing was away with a man). Jing seems really upset.

Final scene. Jing is back on the motorcycle crossing the same bridge as the opening shot of this segment.

Song starts during the movie continues into the credits (sung in English):

The picture which you took before
The smile of gray eyes
May rest, such cruel sounds
It's still vivid
Like a bird
The mountain is not too far
is not too high
is not ....