Being the debut feature by Taiwanese documentary director Chu Hsien-Che, White Ant explores the darkest side of every human being, which shines the light on people requiring assistance when they are being driven to a corner of the society. Using the theme of sexual fetishism, it explores how a sense of righteous, if used in a wrong way, can lead to unexpected and undesired results on the parties involved. White Ant revolves on Bai Yide (Wu Kang Ren), a young man who lives alone and works in a bookstore in Taipei. Being alone and unable to blend himself into the society, he steals lingerie from his neighbors in the neighborhood and develops sexual gratification from it. One day, he receives a DVD from an unidentified sender, which the DVD contains a footage of Yide stealing lingerie from his neighbor. Feeling worried that someone will expose his acts, Yide went on a search to identify the sender. The sender turns out to be Junhong (Aviis Zhong), a female university student who had just broken up with her boyfriend. While she perceived her act to be righteous, it not only leads to Yide's life spiral out of control, but also affects her and Yide's mother, Mrs Bai (Yu Tai-Yan).
In general, the movie can be divided into two parts: the first part focuses on the effect. The showcase of Bai Yide's sexual fetishism and his isolated personality was intervening with Junhong's act of attempt to expose Yide's perverted act in the public. The first ten minutes of the film starts with Yide stealing lingerie from his neighbor in the late evening, where no one was around. This is continued with Yide getting a sense of gratification through wearing the lingerie and masturbation. What follows next was how Yide began to hide the lingerie in a box of various several stolen lingerie. This gave us an introduction on the movie, which leads us to find out more about Yide's distorted personality at the later stage of the movie. For Junhong, she was seen as a heroine in the beginning for exposing Yide's perverted act. However, it eventually leads to Junhong being seen as a person who makes Yide's life spin out of control and ends with a disaster.
Towards the second half of the film, Junhong steps into the main picture. Through an internship, she met Mrs Bai (Yide's mother), a bridal dressmaker. Under Mrs Bai's apprenticeship, Junhong not only seeks to find out more about the life of Yide, but also their personal experiences and hardship they went through after the death of Yide's father. This is where Junhong seeks redemption and self-forgiveness through understanding Yide and Mrs Bai's hardship, which explores the cause of Yide's perversion and distorted personality.
On the reason why the movie is name White Ant, director Chu Hsien-Che explains that white ants/termites tend to live in a dark and moist area, which allows them to breed and gnaw. Yide's personality is just like termite, where he constantly in darkness, whether it is his environment or personality. As a social drama, it highlights to us that there are many people who requires assistance due to the environment and incidents they went through in their life. As a psychological drama, it is more than just a cat and mouse game between Yide and Junhong. While one was choosing to live in darkness, another chooses to seek redemption. This is something that might happen to anyone, including you and me.
White Ant is not your usual popcorn movie. It serves as both a cautionary tale on perversion acts, while at the same time, it tells us that there are people who requires our assistance at any time.
