A clown with red and blue hair, and face paint stands in a busy street, holding a tambourine.

Taiwan Film Festival in Australia The Sandwich Man

  • Cinema
  • Playhouse
  • Run time: 105 minutes, plus 10 min intro Subject to change
  • Seating map

Taiwan | 1983 | Taiwanese and Mandarin with English Subtitles | Drama | Unclassified

This seminal three-part anthology charts Taiwan's transformative Cold War-era industrialisation under the shadow of American economic influence. A towering, essential touchstone that redefined Chinese-language cinema on the global stage, the trilogy brilliantly captures the bittersweet absurdities of survival on the margins of a rapidly changing society.

In Hou’s title chapter, a desperate young father dons clown makeup to become a walking billboard, wrestling with the loss of his own identity to feed his family. Tseng’s Vickie’s Hat follows a disillusioned salesman whose pitch for an imported Japanese pressure cooker ends in a devastating village tragedy. Finally, Wan’s bitingly satirical The Taste of Apples turns a horrific traffic accident into a surreal blessing when a wealthy American naval officer crashes into a slum-dwelling labourer, plunging a destitute family into a world of pristine hospital rooms and foreign luxuries they could only previously dream of.

Produced on a shoestring budget, The Sandwich Man served as the ultimate crucible for the movement’s signature aesthetic, pioneering gritty realism, long takes, and non-professional actors. Despite facing heavy censorship and fierce backlash from conservative critics who feared its raw depiction of poverty would tarnish the nation's international image, the film triumphed to define an entire cinematic generation. Decades later, its emotional resonance and formal brilliance remain as urgent, heartbreaking, and politically sharp as ever.

Presented by Sydney Opera House and Taiwan Film Festival in Australia

Event details

Like most of Hou’s work, Sandwich Man takes a subject that might easily lurch into bathos…and treats it with exquisite subtlety, convincing detail and luminous human perception.

Los Angeles Times

Cast and credits

Directors Hsiao-Hsien, Hou Chuang-Hsiang and Tseng Jen Wan
Writers Chun-ming Huang and Nien-Jen Wu

Kun-shu (segment "The Sandwich Man") Bor-Jeng Chen
A-chu, Kun-shu's wife (segment: The Sandwich Man) Li-Yin Yang 
Theater manager (segment: The Sandwich Man) Kuo-Feng Tseng

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Address

Sydney Opera House
Bennelong Point
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

Getting to the venue

The Opera House is a 7-10 minute walk from Circular Quay, and is easily accessible by car, train, ferry, lightrail, bus, bike and on foot.

Location and access

Playhouse

The Playhouse is located in the north-western corner of Sydney Opera House, best accessed through the Western Foyers.

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