Four Hands (2018) Plot Summary Explained

Houcheng was forcibly taken by the Republic of China Army as they boarded a train in Shandong Province in 1949. This was during the Chinese Civil War, when the Nationalist forces were retreating to Taiwan and conscripting men into military service. He was abruptly separated from his younger brother and newlywed wife, marking the beginning of his fifty-year separation from his original family.

• 1949
• separation
• Republic of China Army
• Shandong
• civil war

Jiawang resented his father because he felt abandoned. Houcheng was taken away when Jiawang was an infant, leaving him to grow up without a father in Taiwan. When Houcheng returned to Taiwan after fifty years, Jiawang's resentment stemmed from feeling rejected and abandoned by a father who had been absent for his entire childhood.

• Jiawang
• resentment
• abandonment
• father-son relationship

The letters were forty-year-old unsent letters written by Jiawang's mother, Houcheng's first wife in Shandong. Each letter was a heartfelt declaration of love and longing for her husband who had been violently torn from her side. She had written these letters but never sent them, likely because of the political separation between the Mainland and Taiwan.

• unsent letters
• mother
• love
• Shandong
• separation

Reading the letters revealed to Jiawang that his father's love and loyalty had never wavered despite the decades of separation. The letters showed that Houcheng had kept his first wife's devotion close all these years, which gradually began to heal the profound rifts between father and son and helped Jiawang understand the true reason for his father's absence.

• reconciliation
• healing
• truth
• father-son bond

Houcheng was unable to contact his first wife due to the political situation. After being taken by the Republic of China Army in 1949, the Mainland and Taiwan were separated by the Cold War divide, with no direct communication possible between the two sides for decades. The unsent letters his wife wrote were never delivered, and he believed she had moved on with her life.

• political separation
• Taiwan
• Mainland
• communication barrier

The mantou-making ritual represented Houcheng's connection to his Mainland Chinese roots and his lost family. In Taipei, preparing mantou daily was his way of preserving the traditions and memories of his past life in Shandong. This quiet ritual served as a spiritual link to his homeland and the family he left behind.

• mantou
• tradition
• Chinese heritage
• memory
• Shandong

Houcheng's first wife passed away long before he returned to Shandong. When Houcheng finally made the decision to revisit his origins after his second wife's death, he discovered that his first love had already died. This revelation added to the bittersweet nature of his return and the urgency for emotional closure.

• first wife
• death
• Shandong
• closure

Houcheng decided to return to Shandong after the death of his second wife stirred deep feelings of nostalgia and reflection. Her passing prompted him to confront his unresolved past and the memories of his first family. This journey was meant to find closure with the life he was forced to leave behind in 1949.

• Shandong
• return
• nostalgia
• second wife death

In his final moments, Houcheng experienced a spiritual reunion with his first love, the wife he was separated from in 1949. This vision allowed him to finally release the burdens of his past and embrace the peace he had been denied for decades. He passed away quietly, finding the closure he had long sought.

• spiritual reunion
• peace
• death
• closure
• first love

Houcheng remarried in Taiwan because he was forced to build a new life after being separated from his original family. He could not return to Shandong or communicate with his first wife due to the political divide, so he created a new family with his second wife, fathering two children in Taipei while still holding onto his memories and traditions.

• remarriage
• Taiwan
• new family
• forced separation