‘Straight-Laced’ Director Wang Yu-lin Turns His Lens Toward Gender Fluidity

Director Wang Yu-lin calls himself a “straight-laced man,” yet his films repeatedly challenge fixed ideas about gender, bodies and social respectability. A September program at Taichung’s Chungshan 73 Film and Arts Space will bring three of those works together and give Wang a chance to explain the choice in person.

The series, titled “Which Role Are You Playing? The Maverick Director Wang Yu-lin,” will screen “Alifu,” “The Rice Bomber” and “The Morning of the Sad Animals.” The films move through transgender identity, Taiwanese opera, sex work, delivery work and intimate relationships shaped by loneliness and alienation. Wang will attend a discussion on Sept. 6 about why he continues to point his camera toward people who “do not live by the rules.”

“Alifu” places transgender themes in tension with Indigenous traditions and earned Chen Chu-sheng a Golden Horse award for best supporting actor. “The Rice Bomber” combines Taiwanese opera, gender and love, including a performance by Kuo Chun-mei that shifts between male and female identities. In “The Morning of the Sad Animals,” Wang turns to the relationship between a delivery worker and a sex worker, using desire as a route into isolation.

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His next film, “Beautiful Mountain,” is scheduled for release by the end of the year. It adds Bunun culture, a mountain adventure, romance and transitional justice for Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, continuing Wang’s preference for subjects that avoid safe formulas.

The venue’s September program also includes a “dramatic romance” section. “Mickey 17” features Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, while “Materialists” brings together Chris Evans, Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in a love triangle. Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell lead a fantasy romance adventure in “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.” Other selections include the Italian film “18 Diamonds,” the musical comedy “The Stolen Song,” starring Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, and “Revenge of the Woman Who Hates Men,” led by Taipei Film Awards winner Lin Yi-ting.

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