Van Pao-te (2018)

Van Pao-te: Directed by Ya-chuan Hsiao. With Chung-Kun Huang, Aria Wang, Meng-Po Fu, Kaiser Chuang. Van Pao-Te, who is now 60 years old, finds himself suffering from a serious illness, instead of getting treatment, he decides to go to Japan to look for his father who abandoned him 50 years ago with the accompany of his son. At the same time, a young man from Hong Kong who is somehow related to Van Pao-Te’s past comes to Taiwan. Two unknown journeys of self-reconciliation begin…

“This is a typical old fashioned Taiwanese movie, telling a story about some ordinary Taiwanese people and families, the head of a hardware and plumbing repair storeu0026#39;s owner suffering incurable late pancreatic cancer. Instead of trying to get some medical treatment, he decided to go to Japan to find out the whereabouts of his father who dumped him long time ago.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is a no big deal story narrated in a very very slow paced speed, trying very hard to be more artful in camera arrangement, but the storyline itself was somewhat unbearably boring due to the director too obsessed in shooting a movie in the traditional way.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe topic of such story also felt quite clicheu0026#39;d and unimportant. 99.9% of the dialog was spoken in southern Fu-Kien province dialect which is the main language spoken by most of the Taiwanese people.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI didnu0026#39;t feel any compassion or empathy when watched this no-big deal movie, although it was seriously made. Actors in this movie all performed naturally but failed to connect a viewer like me. Just a barely okay movie, quite forgetful.”