Taiyupian Spy Games

The first appearance of Sean Connery as Ian Fleming’s 007 in 1962’s Dr. No was a pop phenomenon that sent its reverberations around the world, and East Asia was by no means immune. Japan had Ironfinger and Black Tight Killers, Hong Kong has its “Jane Bond” subgenre and Tang Ching’s Agent 009, and Taiwan had its own cadre of spies and double-agents practicing all manner of skullduggery, beginning with Zhang Ying’s rapturously received The Best Secret Agent of 1964, set during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. Featuring Zhang’s blockbuster, Lin Tuan-chiu’s seamy whodunnit mystery Six Suspects, and Satoru Kobayashi’s “Superman” trilogy, this series offers a sampling of a side of Taiwanese cinema little-known abroad, just in time to mark the 70th anniversary of the Taiwanese-language cinema, or Taiyupian, a cycle of some 1,000 features made from the mid-’60s to 1970s primarily in the local Taiwanese Minnanhua (Hokkien) language.

2K digital restorations, courtesy of Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute