Taipei Story

The construction company Ah-chen works for is about to be acquired and merged, creating job insecurity. When her boss Mrs. Mei leaves and no new position is offered, Ah-chen chooses to quit rather than become a secretary. This marks the first major shift in her professional life.

Ah-chen sympathizes with her mother who lives as a concubine to her irresponsible father. She resolves to break free from the confining family life and rents an apartment away from the house. Before leaving, she passes a spare key to Ah-lung, signaling a new degree of independence and a future with him.

Ah-lung runs a cloth shop on Dihua Street and is a former Little League World Series player, a detail that keeps him nostalgic for past glory. His local roots contrast with Ah-chen's modern ambitions. This setup highlights the cultural divide between them.

Ah-chen and Ah-lung plan to immigrate to the United States together, aiming to join his brother-in-law's import business. Ah-lung is not eager to move, creating early tension about their shared dream. Their plan anchors the couple's hopes for a new life abroad.

When Ah-lung returns from a visit to the US, Ah-chen grows frustrated by his passivity regarding their immigration plans. She wants decisive action, while he remains hesitant. The strain foreshadows the couple's growing distance.

Ah-lung is portrayed as conservative yet generous, going out of his way to help others. He assists Ah-chen's father by paying debts, helps a baseball teammate's gambling wife return home, and aids his former lover Ah-gwan with her divorce. His actions reflect loyalty but also a stubborn adherence to traditional values.

The film contrasts the modern, Western-leaning life of Ah-chen with the local, traditional world Ah-lung inhabits. This divide underpins their misaligned aspirations and decisions. Their divergent worlds become a recurring obstacle to their relationship.

While Ah-lung debates the trip, Ah-chen helps her sister by funding an abortion and gives money to her mother to help pay her father's debts. She also keeps an ambiguous relationship with a married architect who claimed he would divorce. These choices deepen the emotional conflict and show Ah-chen navigating complex loyalties.

Ah-chen learns that Ah-lung visited Tokyo to meet Ah-gwan on his way back from the US, prompting her to slap him. The confrontation leads to Ah-lung breaking up with her, signaling the end of their romantic partnership.

Following the breakup, Ah-lung succumbs to gambling and drinking. He mocks a friend whose gambling wife killed herself, revealing a brittle, hardened distress behind his public stoicism.

Ah-chen finds some relief by spending time with her younger sister's delinquent gang, enjoying parties and bike rides. She also learns that the architect never left his wife, intensifying her sense of disillusionment. The group culture provides a counterpoint to her failing romance.

A young man from the sister's gang develops a crush on Ah-chen and starts waiting outside her apartment. When she asks Ah-lung for help at a karaoke bar, he accompanies her home and she begs him to marry her. Ah-lung declines, arguing that neither marriage nor immigration solves their problems.

As Ah-lung leaves the apartment, the young man follows on a motorbike and later, on a road near Yangming Mountain, Ah-lung fights him. The assailant stabs Ah-lung, who staggers away and dies on the roadside. The killer escapes, and a trash pile with an old TV plays a news reel of Ah-lung's past glory.

Unaware of Ah-lung's death, Ah-chen accompanies Mrs. Mei to inspect a new office space for a US electronics branch. While Mrs. Mei is excited about prospects, Ah-chen remains introspective, staring out the window and contemplating her bleak future.