Director Hsaio Ya-Chuan On Taiwan’s Oscar Entry ‘Old Fox’: “With This Movie I Can Plant Some Seeds” – Contenders International

How to teach your kids right from wrong without laying the groundwork for them to become a complete pushover in later life? That’s the conundrum explored in Hsaio Ya-chuan’s Old Fox, the Taiwanese submission for the Best International Feature Oscar.

Set in 1990, at the height of Taiwan’s economic bubble, it concerns an 11-year-old boy named Liao Jie (Bai Run-yin), who lives with his widowed father Liao Tai-Lai (Liu Kuan-Ting). Liao Tai-Lai is a gifted musician who dreams of opening his own barber shop but cannot afford it. By chance, Liao Jie comes to befriend his neighborhood’s notorious landlord, Mr. Xie (Akio Chen), and the difference between the two men — one kind but poor, the other ruthless but rich — forces the youngster to wonder which might be the most effective role model.

“The inspiration actually came from the questions that my kids asked me when they were about the same age as Liao Jie,” Hsaio at said Deadline’s Contenders International award-season event. “They asked me questions about whether there is fairness and justice in this world, and I couldn’t answer those questions easily. So I kept on asking myself, ‘Is there? And what should I teach my kids?’ Those questions just stayed with me, and that’s how I came to make this film, by trying to answer those questions.”

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Significantly, the film takes place during a specific period in Taiwan’s recent history. “So, a little background about 1990 and Taiwan,” said Hsaio. “In 1987, martial law was finally lifted. After that, a lot of the regulation changed for the stock market, and the market started to boom drastically. … That was when the gap between the poor and the rich started to change so much, and that’s why I chose that time period for the story. Back then, some people got super-rich because of the stock market. Back in my college days, the whole street [I lived on] belonged to one person — the same landlord.”

Unusually for a film of this kind, Old Fox is subtle about the lessons that Liao Jie learns; Hsaio’s story is more concerned with the way the boy considers his options. “I think it’s about making a moral choice, which is really, really universal,” said Hsaio. “Even nowadays, in 2024, we still experience the same situation. The gap between the rich and the poor didn’t disappear. It actually became even more drastic. The rich are definitely way richer, and the poor are way poorer. So, we are still in this same situation.”

The inequality between rich and poor won’t go away any time soon, and Hsaio is realistic about his film’s chances of changing the status quo. “I definitely think it’s hard to have an impact on a massive global impact in such a short time and just with a movie,” he said, “But what we can do is that we can start [the conversation] within ourselves. So that’s one reason also I’m making this film, to have this dialogue with my children about the choices you make, if you want to be more like Boss Xie or if you want to be more like Liao Tai-Lai or if you can find your own way, somewhere in the middle, to be a little selfish but also have a heart — to be able to care about others and not harm them in a very bad way. With this movie, I can plant some seeds in the audience’s head. Although they might not change overnight, they can definitely start to think about this topic.”

Check back Monday for the panel video.

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