The Silent Thrush

Essentially a backstage soap opera, a peek behind the scenes at a touring troupe. Ah Yun joined the group voluntarily, because of her love for traditional Taiwanese opera, but the reality in the 1980s is that the customers prefer striptease, and the company is barely solvent. The film's raison d'être appears to be social, but the political analysis is skin deep. We're left with a banal, heavy-handed, neo-Victorian melodrama, hackneyed characters, and a specious lesbian relationship ambiguous enough to be embraced by the politically correct crowd.