Banana Paradise

A young man and his friend go to Taiwan, believing it to be a land of possibilities. But before long they are accused of being spies and have to conceal who they are. The film is interested not in whether that accusation is true but in a person having to give up his own name. The account spreads its events over a long stretch of time; the lives of the two men are built on new identities and going back becomes impossible. The daily form of a regime of fear, denunciation and silence, stands throughout beneath the text. The film uses humour as well, which makes the account sharper. Doze Niu Cheng-Tse appears in Wang Tung’s hundred and forty eight minute Taiwanese film, completed in 1989.