A Confucian Confusion

Taipei during the boom. A woman running a culture company, her fiancé, a novelist who became famous, a television producer. Inside a week everyone begins doubting everyone else's sincerity, and nobody can say plainly what they actually want. Edward Yang directs. It competed at Cannes in 1994. The title is the argument. In the Confucian ideal, people know what to do with themselves once they are prosperous. In Yang's Taipei prosperity has arrived and nobody knows what to do at all. The Chinese title is Duli Shidai, the age of independence. This is the fastest and most talkative film Yang made. Following A Brighter Summer Day with a comedy surprised people; he defended it as simply the tempo Taipei actually had at that moment. For years no good print circulated. A restoration completed in 2023 with the support of Yang's widow Kaili Peng brought it back, having left it one of the least seen works in his filmography. Who it is for: followers of Yang's Taipei films and of the Taiwanese New Wave, and anyone who likes a city comedy built on rapid talk. Who it is not for: the cast is large, the names are hard to hold onto, and the film never once pauses to introduce anyone.