The Sandwich Man (Film)

1983. Includes: “Son’s Big Doll” (Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien), “Vicki’s Hat” (Dir. Zeng Zhuangxiang), and “The Taste of Apples” Dir. Wan Ren).
Three-part omnibus film, based on Huang Chunming’s stories of Taiwanese provincial life, typical of the Nativist Literature genre.

Context:
Made under CMPC's 'newcomer policy.
Along with In Our Time, another anthology film, it is regarded as one of the foundational films to have kick off the New Taiwanese Cinema.
Came out the same year as The Wheel of Life, also a three-part omnibus film, directed by the three best-known directors of the island: King Hu, Li Hsing and Bai Jingrui, but surprisingly would go on to outperform it.
All films are set in the 1960s, perhaps this was required by the studio to add distance to the satiric and self-critical look at Taiwan of these stories??



The Film:

Issues of masculinity and work roles, and Hou's segment, Son's Big Doll: set in 1962 as an introductory title informs us, and deals with the physical and emotional degradation that often accompany male breadwinning. Hou's hero, introduced to us in his ridiculous and absurd clown get-up doing his ineffective and humiliating job as a walking advertisement, comes home everyday barely acknowledged by his increasingly frustrated wife and a son who recognises him only in costume. At the end, despite an upbeat note for his job, it is clear that something irreversible has taken place in his family life and has created a deep scar.

Issues of neocolonialism and Apples the 3rd segment: “Apples” in particular portrays the dependency of Taiwan on American military and economic aid in the 1960s. Despite, or because of, its black humor, it was seen by conservative critics as a straightforward depiction of Taiwanese backwardness, in relation to both Chinese and American institutions. Americans were closely allied with the KMT throughout the Cold War and were intent on preserving a relationship that sustained U.S. hegemony in the Pacific. As a U.S. embassy junior secretary tells the officer who hit the victim, “Listen. This is an Asian country with which we have the closest cooperation and friendship. So I don’t think there should be any problem. However, the President would be very unhappy if there was any trouble with any of the local people or the government.”

The KMT government looked down on native Taiwanese and systematically deprived them of rights and economic opportunities. Thus when a Taiwanese laborer is accidentally injured in a traffic accident with an American, the man fears the worst. Instead, he is whisked to an immaculate hospital for medical care, solicitation, and due compensation for his entire family, including an offer to send his daughter to the United States for an education. As an extra treat they are offered apples, which at that time were an expensive, imported delicacy.

Linguistic authenticity: Hou's first attempt at faithfully rendering the polyglot nature of Taiwan, and having his characters speak Taiwanese dialect if it's realistic, rather than Mandarin.


Other topical issues inserted: The focus is on those left behind by the economic boom, a neglected and unspoken topic (akin to the way Hou later would bring attention to another previously unspoken trauma, that of the 228 incidence in A City of Sadness.). Son's Big Doll deals with abortion as the father questions their financial ability to raise a second child. In one brief moment the father perhaps even contemplates killing his son because of poverty and hunger. Vicki's Hat deals with the rise of consumer goods, depicted as useless, and the influence of Japan through these.

Meta-dimension to the film and Hou's segment: The title character, in Hou's segment, is literally an advertisement for cinema, much like this film itself was a showcase, even in some way a manifesto, for a new local Taiwanese cinema.

Taste of apples has less darkness than the first two parts, both mood-wise and literally, most of it being set in a hospital with walls glaring in their overexposed whiteness.

Reception:
The film got an advance screening for journalists, and an anonymous letter was sent to CMPC by a local critics’ association to express its displeasure. The letter alerted the censors at CMPC. It even itemized offending sections of the film. The company decided to look closely at the film and hold it to the ideological fire. The company then decided to order a total of eight changes to “Apples,” involving dialogue, tone, behavior, and the outright elimination of certain scenes. CMPC’s act of censorship was dubbed the “apple-peeling incident” by the press. This enraged Wan Ren, Huang Chunming, Xiao Ye, and Wu Nianzhen, who in turn used their connections with a sympathetic press to launch an attack against CMPC. Embarrassed by the coverage in two major newspapers, the company withdrew its orders. Eventually, “Apples’’ was shown whole, thanks to the public intervention of the press, specifically Yang Shiqi, a United Daily News entertainment journalist who championed the New Cinema.

CMPC’s political watchdogs had been alarmed by the strong reaction against 'The Taste of Apples' by conservative journalists. In response, one of the stipulations CMPC required was to insert titles clearly marking the historical period in which the stories take place. Thus the film, in the segment by Hou Hsiao-hsien, opens with the words '1962. Zhuqi'. Zhuqi is a small, south-central town near Mt. Ali (Ali Shan), in a forest reserve developed by the Japanese. These titles mark a diegetic separation of the film from the realities of contemporary Taiwan in the 1980s.

It "was well-received critically and a bigger box-office success than had been anticipated. This led one major newspaper to declare, 'The release of The Sandwich Man heralds the completely new start of the Chinese Cinema in Taiwan!'" [Island on the Edge, 5.]

The film's critical and commercial success (partly certainly for offering a platform for a new kind of content not previously seen in Taiwanese cinema) led to a wave in literary adaptations of Huang and other Nativist Literature texts. (see Lian Xian-hao, 'The Consciousness of Southern Culture' China Tribue, Oct 25 1989, p41.)