Help Me, Eros

The story unfolds in the modern era, where a personal existential crisis intersects with urban consumer culture. The characters navigate a digital-age cityscape, using hotlines and online chats as lifelines. The contemporary setting underlines the immediacy of economic precarity and intimate longing.

Set in contemporary Kaohsiung, a major southern port city in Taiwan, the film unfolds across a dense urban landscape of apartments, kiosks, and pawn shops. It highlights the contrast between slick designer interiors and street-level hustle. The waterfront and night-life districts backdrop the characters’ struggles with money, desire, and isolation.

🔥 Desire

Desire drives Jie to seek intense, boundary-pushing experiences with Shin and to fantasize about Chyi. The film probes how longing can blur moral lines and provoke self-destructive impulses. Physical intimacy is entangled with power, control, and fantasy in a morally ambiguous landscape.

💔 Loneliness

Characters crave connection in a crowded city, yet remain emotionally distant. Jie’s bursts of affection contrast with Chyi’s professional restraint and Shin’s tentative closeness, exposing how loneliness can push people toward dangerous, ephemeral bonds. Isolation is depicted alongside the noise of modern life.

💸 Precarity

Financial strain permeates the story: unemployment, pawned possessions, and lottery tickets symbolize attempts to salvage dignity. The film portrays material desire as both a source of escape and a trap, driving episodes of risk and volatility. Economic vulnerability shaping relationships and choices.