Island Etude (2006)
"Lian xi qu" (original title)

Travelling is always the best way to encounter true stories. Ming-Hsang, a deaf, decided to cycle around Taiwan before graduating from the college. This film, lasting for 100 minutes, ... See full summary »

Director:

Huai-en Chen

Writer:

Huai-en Chen

Stars:

Ming-hsiang Tung, Danny Deng, Saya

1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Ming-hsiang Tung	...	Ming
Danny Deng	...	The Director (as An-ning Teng)
Saya	...	The Maiden Sayon - in dream sequence (as Hwei-chun Chang)
Teng-te Huang
Darren	...	A-Chun (as Chun-jui Chiang)
Hsiu-hui Chen	...	A-Chun's Mother
Ruta Palionyte	...	Ruta - The Lithuanian
Chao-hsin Lin
Hsiao-shun Hsu	...	Husband
Jui-li Hung	...	Wife
Lai-Yin Yang	...	Teacher Liu
Nien-Jen Wu	...	Tour Bus Driver
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Chien-ho Wang

Storyline

Travelling is always the best way to encounter true stories. Ming-Hsang, a deaf, decided to cycle around Taiwan before graduating from the college. This film, lasting for 100 minutes, documents his trip which lasted 7 days and 6 nights. He camped at the beach of Tai-Ma-Li on the first evening, playing guitar. Although he has hearing problems, he is still very much interested in sounds. The next morning, he followed Tai-11 highway. He met a group of people filming MV at the east coastline. They also film him. The third day, he was on the Su-Hua highway, a highway notoriously difficult to conquer for cyclists. He met a Lithuanian girl at Han-Ben railway station. She missed the train to Hua-Lien. He helped her to get on her train by communication with her by pens and papers.

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Plot Keywords:

deaf | beach | taiwan | guitar | bicycle | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Taiwan

Language:

Mandarin Min Nan Lithuanian

Release Date:

27 April 2007 (Taiwan)

Also Known As:

Island Etude

Filming Locations:

Taiwan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Zoom Hunt International Productions Company Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was the official representative of Taiwan to the 80th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Taiwan's national Film Board has originally selected Lust, Caution to represent the island, but when that film was disqualified on a technicality, Taiwan was given a matter of hours to select a new film - and they went with "Island Etude".

User Reviews

Find out what you wanna do and do it.

There are movies that when you see you will tend to think about evaluating them giving them scores sticking critiques to them or any other stuff like those, but movies like Island Etude, on the other hand, is of another type. When you watch Island Etude, probably from the first few minutes on, the only thing on your mind is simply keeping enjoying it.

Especially ever since the guitar starts sounding...

Haven't seen a scene like this in a movie for a long time: a young man riding his bike along the seaside, so enjoyingly with smile on face, long nice hair drawing wind's direction, huge guitar bag on back, and of course as mentioned just now, the background guitaring... Actually at this moment the guitar music is called "riding side by side", as you can hear the playing of two guitars simultaneously. At this point would you want to say anything about how movies and scenes like this should be shot and how this movie and scene could be improved? I bet you don't, cuz I guess you are like me, immersed in pure joy.

Don't wanna talk about the movie technically, technically good is just not what it's meant to be, instead, it's what it can leave you with.

Our hero of Island Etude is not the talkative type, actually he doesn't talk much at all, but there is one simple line from him that is really touching, simple as it might sound, "some things if you don't do now, you won't never do." Once in a while we doubt about the meaning of our lives, doubt if we can do what people around us can do if we can have a life as good as theirs, we just tend to wanna copy others' dreams and lives, what about ourselves'? The meaning of your life is if you have the guts to do stuff you wanna do. You may not be able to do it quickly cuz we all have to do things we need to do before things we want to do, but sooner or later you gotta do it if you don't want your life to be your regret.

Forget things everybody says you should do to fulfill your life, do things you feel you need to do to fulfill your life. It's a short life we got buddy, gotta make it worthwhile.