Cheerful Wind
(Feng er ti ta cai)

Made almost ten years after The Young Ones – hence the interest of comparing the two films – Cheerful Wind is another adaptation of a romance by Chiung Yao, this time made by Hou Hsiao-hsien just before the birth of New Taiwanese Cinema. The writer produced the film herself. Hsing-hui (Feng Fei-fei, the famous Taiwanese pop star) is working as a photographer on the shoot of a commercial in a village in north Taiwan. There, she meets a strange blindman, Chin Tai (Kenny Bee), and falls in love with him, although she is already romantically involved with the director of the advertising agency that employs her. After Cute Girl (1980) – another romantic comedy destined for mainstream cinema –, Hou Hsiao-hsien hints in the film his ever-stronger determination to address how gender relations are changing in society. JB