Birdland

Huang's follow-up to the exceptional Too Young is an ambitious short feature that tries to construct a bird's-eye panorama of contemporary Taiwan. An illegal immigrant from Mainland China reaches Taipei and is taken for A-Xiang, a cab driver who went missing while flying a light plane two years ago. He nervously assumes A-Xiang's identity and begins driving his taxi. His story is cross-cut with two others, one about a young motorcycle courier, the other about a betelnut vendor who works as an extra in a crummy movie and then (without trying) picks up a surrogate family. And we eventually catch up with the real A-Xiang, who crashed his plane and began a new life with one of Taiwan's aboriginal tribes. Wittily observed and skilfully put together, but as a state-of-the-nation sketch of a troubled island it's too slight to add up.