Despite winning the prestigious Critic’s Prize at the Locarno Film Festival, the film was a commercial disaster in Taiwan. The original negatives were damaged, and for twenty years, the only available copies were faded prints shown at retrospective festivals. While Edward Yang’s later film, Yi Yi (2000), received a pristine Criterion Collection release, Taipei Story languished in legal limbo due to disputes over music rights and unclear ownership of the assets following Yang’s death in 2007.
For the waishengren (mainlander descendants) who live in a perpetual state of diasporic anxiety, the archive offers a stable, if pixelated, homeland. For the younger Gen Z coders, it is a weird, retro curiosity. But for the rest of us, it is a memorial. taipei story internet archive
When Taipei Story premiered, it was a critical darling (winning the Grand Prix at the Lugano Film Festival), but a commercial failure in Taiwan. The public wanted romantic comedies and action heroes, not two hours of existential dread. Consequently, the film reels sat in a warehouse, gathering dust and vinegar syndrome (a chemical decay that destroys old film stock). Despite winning the prestigious Critic’s Prize at the
It says: What if the Taipei that exists in our hard drives is more real than the one made of concrete? For the waishengren (mainlander descendants) who live in