Chao ji da guo min

Being very lucky to see Six Suspects (1965-also reviewed) screened, I was thrilled to discover that the HOME cinema in Manchester were in May 2022 screening two other rare films from Taiwan, leading to me meeting citizen K.

Note:Review contains some plot details.

View on the film:

Driving pass what are now luxury hotels, but during the White Terror were locations where he and his friend Chen were tortured for years, Lin Yang gives a haunting, somber performance as Ko, whose sixteen years spent under arrest and being tortured as a political prisoner on Green Island, is sketched deeply by Yang on the face of Ko, who is taken round by his daughter to see the massive changes which have taken place in the now democratic country, that leaves Ko with a question he wants to find the answer to: Where is the grave of Chen.

Flickering between the past and the present, production designer/co-writer (with Ching-Sung Liao and Nien-Jen Wu) / director Jen Wan & cinematographer Rei-Yuan Shen combined the two time periods with a harrowing atmosphere from grainy, hand-held close-ups on Ko returning to streets he last saw when being taken to get tortured, with the expert editing in of archive news footage, and stark, drained of colour panning shots over Ko and Chen being tortured, bringing a solemn mood to the graceful final shot, where Ko shines a light, for those murdered during the White Terror.