MAVERICK

菜鳥

Directed by Cheng Wen-tang

Asia Pop! / Taiwan / 2015 / Drama, Noir / 114 mins / Mandarin, Taiwanese with English subtitles / HD / West Coast Premiere

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MAVERICK

UCSD Calit2 Atkinson Hall Auditorium
Saturday, November 5, 2016 2:55 pm

Description

Opening Night Film, 2015 Taipei Film Festival
Official Selection, 2016 New York Asian Film Festival

When he arrives at his assigned precinct, rookie cop Yeh proves to be more trouble than any murderer, pimp, or thief. That’s because he insists, despite warning after warning, on looking into the case of Black Monkey, a loose-cannon drug dealer who also happens to be the son of the city council chairman. He soon discovers that the culture of silence spreads beyond the police station. It’s the tacit understanding of the entire city – including educators, politicians – that speaking up against the well-bankrolled chairman and his son means cutting off the lifeline that sustains everyone. But Yeh sees what the culture doesn’t sustain: positive personal relationships, a sense of pride, the reasons he joined the force to begin with. So he persists and finds himself alone and teetering the line between cop and criminal.

Director Cheng Wen-tang (Somewhere over the Dreamland, Blue Cha Cha) follows up his similar Tears with another hard-headed police drama about romanticism crushed by socio-economic dispassion. With bruised faces and hearts, the film’s lead actors You Sheng and Kaiser Chuang portray the desolation that comes with integrity, that internalized hurt and alienation one feels when wanting to do good is like a sickness you can’t tell anybody else. MAVERICK dares to tell, indicting cronyism with the numbing coldness of noir. –Brian Hu