appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

liveArticle

appConfig

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sectionsV2

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

json

Carrie Chan

Taiwan

Fed up with the sombre  mood  of Taiwanese cinema, fledgling director-scriptwriter Robin Lee Yun-chan   has come up with a surreal, lighthearted  love story  for her first feature film.

The Shoe Fairy, which draws on the likes of The Little Mermaid and Alice in Wonderland, is  set  in a land  dotted with tiny, colourful houses, a Prince Charming, shoes that cry and witches.

The 34-year-old says that, unlike filmmakers of a previous generation, she's not interested  in portraying alienation  in modern Taiwan.  She takes pleasure in depicting extreme  and unusual behaviour.

One of her short films, Extreme Ironing (2005), is  about people ironing clothes in the unlikeliest  of places, such as on a mountain and in the wild.  'Because daily  life is so mundane  I have to   come up with new things to put  in  my movies,' she says.

Her first feature film has  been  a hit, both at the box office and with critics. It won the best visual effects award at last year's  Golden Horses,  and has been selected for festivals in  Pusan, Tokyo  and Buenos Aires.     Focus Films (owned by singer-actor Andy Lau Tak-wah)  has  already made a 30 per cent profit  on its investment, and the film has been sold in Pusan and Tokyo.

Lee says she represents  a  new wave of young Taiwanese filmmakers who   experiment with genres rather than follow  the realist, dark approach of their predecessors such as  Hou Hsiao-hsien  and Tsai Ming-liang.  Her peers include  Chen Kuo-fu  (Double Vision, 2002)   and Leste Chen (The Heirloom, 2005).

'The previous  trend was to shoot slow, painful stories,' she says. 'I  want to make something different - something  more colourful  that makes people happy.'

Lee has been a film-lover  since secondary school, at least, and says she once watched 100 films in one year. However, she initially  wanted to be a scientist  and has a postgraduate degree  in biology, specialising  in  animal science.

After  graduating, she spotted an  advertisement  for  a production assistant  at a television station. She got the job and slowly moved up the ranks to become assistant director on films  such as Leon  Dai Li-ren's  social drama Twenty Something Taipei (2003)   and  Lin Cheng-sheng's Betelnut Beauty (2001).

Four years ago, she started writing scripts, and then in 2004, she made her first short film,  The Magical Wash Machine, with government funding. It won best short film award at the Golden Horses,  and caught the eye of Focus Films.

Having been an avid reader  of fairy tales, Lee says she wants  to 'turn them inside out'.

The Shoe Fairy is a love story about Duo Duo (Vivian Hsu Shu-chuan),  a disabled girl who is searching for happiness.  She regains the ability to walk after  surgery and becomes obsessive about shoes. She eventually marries  her Prince Charming, a  dentist (Duncan Chow Kwan-tat),  but the story doesn't end happily ever after. Her husband objects to her  spending so much money on shoes.  The film ends with a twist.

The Shoe Fairy has been described as feminist, and Lee says that, as a single woman, she wanted to explore marriage.

'I'm 34 years old, but I don't have an answer to happiness,'  she says. 'Will it be shoes, or a prince or children? I'm still single and I wonder  what marriage would be like.'

Oscar Wilde's Happy Prince,  which Duo Duo reads to her daughter, symbolises her new definition of happiness - away from her fetish for fancy footwear. 'Duo Duo realises that she can find  happiness  by giving away her possessions,' Lee says.  'It's similar to the way the  Happy Prince gives away all  his jewels to the swallow. We don't get happiness just by possessing things.'

Lee  joined the Taiwanese film industry when it was at one of  its lowest points, she says. Film-makers have had to rely on government funding,  particularly when local audiences were more interested in foreign films.

But things are looking better now, with more investors  willing to back projects and  audiences  apparently keener  on local movies.

The Shoe Fairy is part of the Focus Film First Cuts, a scheme  aimed at boosting the profile of young Asian filmmakers.

Lee will continue to collaborate with Focus Films with  My DNA Says I Love You, which  focuses on a young woman obsessed about cleanliness - who falls in love with a grubby man.  One day, she takes a pill that changes her DNA, and her obsession vanishes.



Lee goes against the sombre grain with a surreal tale of love