Dust in the Wind (film)

Dust in the Wind
Theatrical release poster
Traditional Chinese	戀戀風塵
Simplified Chinese	恋恋风尘
Literal meaning	deep love, windblown dust
Hanyu Pinyin	liàn liàn fēngchén
Hokkien POJ	loân loân hong-tîn
Directed by	Hou Hsiao-hsien
Written by	Chu T’ien-wen Wu Nien-jen
Starring	Wang Chien-wen Xin Shufen Li Tian-lu
Cinematography	Mark Lee Ping-Bin
Music by	Chen Ming-Chang
Production company	Central Motion Picture Corporation
Distributed by	Central Motion Picture Corporation
Release date	1986 (1986)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	Taiwan
Languages	Taiwanese Mandarin

Dust in the Wind is a 1986 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. It is based on co-screenwriter Wu Nien-jen's own experiences, and is the first of a trilogy of Hou and Wu's collaborations, the others being A City of Sadness (1989) and The Puppetmaster (1993).

The film depicts the bittersweet love story of two village sweethearts, Ah Yuan (阿遠)  and Ah Yun (阿雲), who left hometown Jiufen (九份) to work in Taipei city together after graduating from junior high school. It is highly acclaimed for Hou Hsiao-hsien's nostalgic depiction of Taiwan's rural past, when trains were the main transportation in the 1970s. The soundtrack by Chen Ming-chang (陳明章) and the cinematography by Lee Ping-bing (李屏賓) won the Best Cinematography and Music Award in Festival des 3 Continents in 1987.

Ah Yuan and Ah Yun are childhood sweethearts living in Jiufen, a rural town nestled in the hills of northern Taiwan. Their fathers work as coal miners, and the two grow up inseparable, traveling to school together daily by train and walking home along the railway and winding uphill roads. After finishing high school, Ah Yuan moves to Taipei to work at a printing shop. A year later, Ah Yun follows him to the city and takes a job at a tailor shop.

City life in Taipei proves challenging for both. Ah Yuan’s motorbike is stolen while he and Ah Yun shop for shoes at Chunghua Market (中華商場), and Ah Yun struggles with intense homesickness. Thankfully, they find comfort in friends who, like them, come from the countryside.

When Ah Yuan is drafted into the Army, he is stationed at the Kinmen Defense Command. He writes letters to Ah Yun faithfully, and she replies regularly—until one day, her letters stop, and his are returned unopened. Ah Yuan’s heart breaks when his younger brother writes to tell him that Ah Yun has married a postman without informing her parents.

Despite the pain, Ah Yuan eventually heals. When his military service ends, he returns to his hometown wearing a shirt Ah Yun had made for him. At home, he finds his mother peacefully asleep and listens to his grandfather’s familiar grumbles about the typhoon ruining the sweet potato harvest. Surrounded by the comforts of home, Ah Yuan feels a deep sense of happiness and belonging.

The film features the master of glove puppetry Li Tian-lu (李天祿) in the role of the grandfather. Li became an iconic actor in Hou's films after he took a role in this film. This film is Li Tian-lu's debut film performance, and it is also Chen Ming-Chang 's first film soundtrack.

Wang Chien-wen, who played Ah Yuan, joined the production when he was about to  graduate from the Department of Theatre Arts of Chinese Culture University in 1985. This is also the only film he ever performed in his life. Unfortunately, Wang died early in 2014.^[1]

Dust in the Wind portrays the urbanization of Taiwan in the 1970s, when more and more youngsters left their hometowns to find jobs in the city. The film touches upon social issues such as violence in the workplace some of them have to endure. It also portrays the miners complaining about the ill treatment of  the mining company and proposing to go for a strike.

Hou Hsiao-hsien and Wu Nian-chen jointly wrote a letter to James Soong, director of the Information Bureau of the Executive Yuan, requesting his help to obtain assistance from the military department for the scenes involving Ah Yuan’s military service. Central Motion Picture Corporation also submitted the script and applied for military support to go to Kinmen for on-site shooting. However, the military department rejected the request due to the concerns that the plot of Ah Yuan being ditched by his sweetheart during military service might have a negative impact on the soldiers. The scenes in Kinmen thus had to be shot in Xiangshan in Taipei.^[2]

The outdoor screening of Beautiful Duckling in the village in this film is considered to be a deliberate tribute to Li Hsing, who is the director of this representative film of Healthy Realism (健康寫實).^[3]

The location of the tailor’s shop where Huen worked after arriving in Taipei is now the Red House Theater in Ximending, Taipei. According to Chu T’ien-wen', in the original script Ah Yun was to work in a restaurant, but when Chu T’ien-wen scouted the location at Ximending (西門町), she found that a costume shop very nostalgic, so she changed the script and the film finally was shot in this place.

Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1996 film Goodbye South, Goodbye opens with a return to the Shifen Station where Wan and Huen once stepped on the railway tracks. This time the camera is placed at the rear of the train instead of at the head as in Dust in the Wind, thus conveying a sense of farewell.

Jiufen, once a popular town for gold mining, became one of the most well known tourist attractions in Taiwan because of this film and City of Sadness (1989), whose story is also set here. Hou even regretted that he ever made City of Sadness and caused the ruin of the quiet small town, which was captured in Dust in the Wind.^[4]

• Dust in the Wind at IMDb