Cheng Li-Ming (鄭立明) is a Taiwanese filmmaker born in 1968 in Chang-Hua. He is a graduate from Shih-Hsin University. He has worked for The Golden Horse Executive Committee, Chinese Taipei Film Archive, and has been a film critic and writer.
Scottish photographer John Thomson's trip to Taiwan in 1871 left an important mark in the history. This film reinterprets the event via a photo of a hunter, taking the audience to the Siraya tribe to meet WAN, a tribe elder who knows how to sing and talk. Through his intriguing words and songs, WAN leads us back to the past as he plucks the strings.
This film develops in remains of cinema, where past usher walks to and fro holding a flashlight in darkness and ticket agent counted tickets day after day; the past scenes has its romance, fright, pain, lust and bitterness. The cinema is a miniature of the universe, those who were lived for it and fascinated with it are still lingering in this space, in this dream and doesn’t wake up.
Camera, Rolling, action! Than they act, sing and cry.However, how many people realize that the earlier film base was actually made of Taiwan's camphor tree and the story behind it?