This movie is like a bizarro-world Network and bizarro-world Star is Born rolled into one, all in the service of propaganda about how ordinary people doing ordinary jobs are the real stars of the world. It is very goofy, intentionally and otherwise, even without the terrible subtitles I saw it with--30% of which are incomprehensible, and 20% of what's left is still pretty bad...and even simple four letter words are misspelled...but none of that has any bearing on the movie, except that is makes the film just hard enough to follow and strange that you feel a little stoned, which adds to the incidental pleasures of the film (of which here is another: whenever the characters are in a restaurant--any restaurant--the background music quietly playing is always Nadia's theme: tonally off from everything else in the scene, but apparently still quite popular six years after the Olympics made it a massive hit).
Ok, so the plot, eliding some of the particulars both romantic and corporate: a producer bucks all expectations by putting on a TV show that just shows really drab documentary footage of people doing their jobs, and the public instantly goes bananas for it. They gather and line up in front of display TVs from literally the very first minutes of the program (which is like the dutiful filler on a kids show), completely excited and poking each other about how amazing this is. It is so popular that another show rips them off, and the two crews are always showing up to the same schools for the deaf or the same ballet classes, and getting into actual bloody fistfights over who will get to shoot this captivating material (it sounds like the film is spoofing this aspect of the story but it's really not-like I said, it's propaganda-for-the-common-man type stuff. I don't really know anything about Taiwanese politics circa 1982, but it seemed more like something you would see from mainland China in that regard). And I thought from the movie summary that it was going to be a Star-is-Born-type story about the female star becoming too big for the producer who put her in the role, but instead the whole idea is that she actually has a regular productive job as well, which she no longer has time for, and it becomes this huge dramatic tragedy that she is neglecting this other job. That's literally the main conflict (which is a little weird, because the film then is forced to elevate her more humble contribution to her computer work over her role highlighting and celebrating the contributions of every other humble person in society, who all then seem invigorated and moved by each other's contributions, just as the film would seemingly consider ideal).
Her father is so upset about not seeing his overworked daughter anymore that he somehow manages to fall and break his finger (he is in his forties, not an old man), though sadly we do not see it occur or even understand how that could have happened (and, hilariously, the subtitles tell us he lost the finger. Reader, he did not). This offscreen accident, somewhat casually related, is somehow the big dramatic low point of the movie (the comedy has disappeared at this point)--that and the fact that she snoozes at her other job, which makes everyone treat the producer like he's a scumbag for having ruined her life, now that she is famous and popular and successful...even though her face is never shown on camera, being hidden behind a hat, because--well, it wouldn't do to single yourself out as special, after all. The fact that her face is never shown is actually tragic as well, because now her father can't remember what she looks like (that was fast). The producer is naturally anguished about what he has done to society by depriving it of her more honorable contributions, and to her sleep regimen, and spends about 25 minutes of the movie trying to get her to quit, but she won't listen.
It all comes to a head when she finally finds out that her father hurt his finger because he was so worried about her, falls to the floor and sobs, quits on camera a few minutes later, and kisses the producer amidst the ensuing pandemonium. Now that everything is resolved to everyone's satisfaction, the film abruptly ends.
Ok, so the plot, eliding some of the particulars both romantic and corporate: a producer bucks all expectations by putting on a TV show that just shows really drab documentary footage of people doing their jobs, and the public instantly goes bananas for it. They gather and line up in front of display TVs from literally the very first minutes of the program (which is like the dutiful filler on a kids show), completely excited and poking each other about how amazing this is. It is so popular that another show rips them off, and the two crews are always showing up to the same schools for the deaf or the same ballet classes, and getting into actual bloody fistfights over who will get to shoot this captivating material (it sounds like the film is spoofing this aspect of the story but it's really not-like I said, it's propaganda-for-the-common-man type stuff. I don't really know anything about Taiwanese politics circa 1982, but it seemed more like something you would see from mainland China in that regard). And I thought from the movie summary that it was going to be a Star-is-Born-type story about the female star becoming too big for the producer who put her in the role, but instead the whole idea is that she actually has a regular productive job as well, which she no longer has time for, and it becomes this huge dramatic tragedy that she is neglecting this other job. That's literally the main conflict (which is a little weird, because the film then is forced to elevate her more humble contribution to her computer work over her role highlighting and celebrating the contributions of every other humble person in society, who all then seem invigorated and moved by each other's contributions, just as the film would seemingly consider ideal).
Her father is so upset about not seeing his overworked daughter anymore that he somehow manages to fall and break his finger (he is in his forties, not an old man), though sadly we do not see it occur or even understand how that could have happened (and, hilariously, the subtitles tell us he lost the finger. Reader, he did not). This offscreen accident, somewhat casually related, is somehow the big dramatic low point of the movie (the comedy has disappeared at this point)--that and the fact that she snoozes at her other job, which makes everyone treat the producer like he's a scumbag for having ruined her life, now that she is famous and popular and successful...even though her face is never shown on camera, being hidden behind a hat, because--well, it wouldn't do to single yourself out as special, after all. The fact that her face is never shown is actually tragic as well, because now her father can't remember what she looks like (that was fast). The producer is naturally anguished about what he has done to society by depriving it of her more honorable contributions, and to her sleep regimen, and spends about 25 minutes of the movie trying to get her to quit, but she won't listen.
It all comes to a head when she finally finds out that her father hurt his finger because he was so worried about her, falls to the floor and sobs, quits on camera a few minutes later, and kisses the producer amidst the ensuing pandemonium. Now that everything is resolved to everyone's satisfaction, the film abruptly ends.
