A CONFUCIAN CONFUSION

Director: Edward Yang. 129 minutes. Taiwan. 1994. Language: Mandarin Chinese. Colour. 4K restoration

The film will be introduced by film producer Chuti Chang.

Screening as part of the Edward Yang Season presented with the support of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland.

And a very special thanks to Janus Films and NG Yuk Lin.

All Edward Yang Season’s film notes are taken from the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, the Film Lincoln Centre and Janus Films.

---

Art versus commerce, friendship versus status, independence versus conformity—values clash and collide in Yang’s study of an increasingly Westernised country heading into the twenty-first century without moral guideposts. Moving from breakout hit A Brighter Summer Day’s investigation of the past to a critical survey of the present, A Confucian Confusion charts the tangled web of emotional and professional manipulations among a group of young urbanites with at its centre, Molly, the director of a floundering public-relations firm. Alienated by the childish fiancé who bankrolls her enterprise – and frustrated by the demands of an assistant, Qiqi, and her own fiancé, Ming – Molly lashes out at everyone in her path and threatens to dismantle the company altogether. Injecting comedic elements into his patented brand of earnest soul-searching, Yang finds humour as well as pathos in the desperate behaviour of a lost and lonely generation.