Darkness and Light (film)

Darkness and Light is a 1999 Taiwanese narrative film directed by Chang Tso-chi. It was screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight section of the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, and won the Grand Prix at the 12th Tokyo International Film Festival. Darkness and Light was also nominated for seven different categories at the 36th Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards and went on winning the Jury Award, the Best Original Screenplay Award, and the Best Film Editing Award. In 2010, it was ranked 43 of the Top 100 Chinese-language films by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards Committee.

Plot
Darkness and Light unfolds in a fishing town in Keelung, a port city near Taipei. Kang-yi, a seventeen-year-old student in Taipei returns home in Keelung for summer vacation. Growing up with an absent mother, Kang-yi takes care of her family: her intellectually disabled younger brother, her blind father, and her grandparents. All of them live together in an apartment complex in Keelung and work as masseurs at the massage parlor run by Kang-yi’s father out of their apartment home after a car accident blinds him and kills Kang-yi’s mother when Kang-yi was little. Kang-yi's family depends on her to connect with the outside worlds as she helps guide them at work and through everyday tasks. Kang-yi meets Ah Ping, a young gangster from a mainlander family who just moves into her apartment building. Kang-yi slowly develops a crush on Ah Ping. As the two of them start hanging out around the neighborhood and eventually make a trip to Taipei together, they become embroiled in a gangland fight that unfortunately kills Ah Ping. Meanwhile, Kang-yi’s father falls ill and eventually passes away after his trip to Taipei with Kang-yi. Devastated by the tragedy of losing both her father and Ah Ping, Kang-yi sees her father and Ah Ping's magical return in the film's dream-like ending. Darkness and Light ends with a surreal sequence following a firework showering from Kang-yi’s window, during which Kang-yi’s father and Ah Ping, the two characters who have died previously, return to Kang-yi’s home for a meal and are warmly greeted by everyone.

Cast

 * Lee Kang-i as Kang-yi – A seventeen-year-old student in Taipei, who returns to her home in Keelung to take care of her blind father, intellectually disabled younger brother, and grandfather during summer vacation. She falls in love with Ah Ping.
 * Wing Fan as Ah Ping – A young gangster who just moves to Kang-yi’s apartment building and is killed in a gangster dispute.
 * Tsai Ming-Shiou as Kang-yi's father – Blinded by a car accident, Kang-yi’s father runs a massage parlor out of their apartment home with Kang-yi’s brother and grandfather and three other blind masseurs.
 * Hsieh Bau-huei as Kang-yi's mother – Killed by the same car accident that blinds Kang-yi’s father when Kang-yi was still very young at age.
 * He Huang-ji as Ah Ji – Kang-yi's intellectually disabled younger brother.

Production
Since his early productions, Chang Tso-chi has been known for his style of working with people who share similar lived experiences with the characters portrayed in his films. The same goes with his second feature length film, Darkness and Light, as all the blind characters Chang Tso-chi cast in the film are discovered by him on the street. To prepare the amateur actors for their roles, Chang Tso-chi often asks the entire cast to spend extended time together, so that they can bond and build a sense of intimacy together. "I usually rent a house and have all the actors move in," Chang explained to Taiwan Review journalist, Kelly Her. "They live, cook, eat, and even sleep under the same roof, so that they can get to know each other quickly. That makes the shooting go smoothly and their performances more natural." Chang further noted in the same interview that, while shooting the film, he relied on portable lighting to give his actors maximum freedom of movement.

Reception and Reviews
In 2010, Darkness and Light was ranked 43 of the Top 100 Chinese-language films by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards Committee.

CineAction film critic, Shelly Kraicer, praised Chang Tso-chi's second feature length film, Darkness and Light, as "the most demanding and the most rewarding Chinese language film at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival." "Like fellow Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chang [Tso-chi] makes films that impose a speed (slow) and a rhythm (subtle, insistent, measured) on their viewers."

Variety film critic, David Stratton, described Chang Tso-chi's second feature length film, Darkness and Light, as "combin[ing] realism with mysticism to baffling effect. A genuine oddity, pie has distinctive qualities and is a possible traveler on the summer fest circuit.” He also noted that the film’s “fantastic finale is on a completely different level from the downbeat realism of the rest of the film and its generally naturalistic thesping. It certainly makes for an unusual resolution to an otherwise standard study of working class types and gangster substrata.”

Taiwan Review film critic, Kelly Her, praised, "Movie director Chang Tso-chi, one of the few survivors of a film industry battered by international competition, is winning kudos from critics for his tales of the triumph of the little man struggling against long odds."

Music/Soundtrack
Taiwanese singer and songwriter, Summer Lei (雷光夏), wrote and sang the theme song, “Forgiveness,” for Chang Tso-chi's Darkness and Light. In 2006, during the pre-production of Summer Lei's own music album, Summer Lei phoned Chang Tso-chi to inquire about the possibility to use the title of Chang’s film, Darkness and Light, for her new album. To Lei's surprise, Chang agreed without any hesitation. Chang even told Summer that she could use any of his film titles for her albums.

Anecdotes
Chang Tso-chi, fidgeting under the glare of television cameras and looking slightly uneasy at the press conference at the 59th Venice Film Festival in September 2002, commented, "Writing a script is delightful, and so is shooting a film," he said during a press conference. "But wearing a suit and tie is miserable."

Festival Premieres and Highlights

 * Cannes Film Festival: Directors' Fortnight section of the 52nd
 * Toronto International Film Festival
 * Vancouver International Film Festival
 * Viennale International Film Festival
 * Filmfest Hamburg
 * Festival des 3 Continents
 * London Film Festival
 * Tokyo International Film Festival
 * Taipei Film Festival
 * Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards