You-Ning Lee

Four Hands relates a family drama that spans China and Taiwan over three generations. The story deals with a veteran of the Chinese Nationalist army who retreated to Taiwan only to discover that the dreams of “reconquering the mainland” are empty rhetoric.

A Canadian writer and a Taiwanese teenager meet in a village in the east coast of Taiwan.

To achieve his dream of being a trumpet player, a man leaves his hometown and works in a touring operetta troupe. He falls in love with a girl but then contracts tuberculosis, forcing him to give up the trumpet.

The film consists of three stories: One about a 5-year-old girl, one about a teenager, and still another about a 30 something woman involved in an affair with a married man. Without providing a definite answer whether the three leading actresses are playing the same person in different stages of life, the movie instead hovers on several consistent themes that keep on emerging in all the stories. For example, the image of drops of blood on the clothes, in the shape of maroon flowers.

Li Lin and Wu Ai-hua -- two girls growing in a same military dependent community, are of sharp contrast in personalities. The former is charming, smart, open-mined and wild. Never shall she bow to challenges. In her life, she loves only one man -- a handsome and resolute pilot of the air force by the name of Ho Kang, who grew up in the same neighborhood with her. The latter, Wu Ai-hua, is a closed-minded and depressed girl. In the course of her growth, she loves only one man -- the courageous and smart pilot of air force by the name Ho Kang. Her personalities, however, confine her love towards him in secret. Never has she expressed her love toward him. While the two girls have fostered very firm friendship. With the very same lover and with the eventual destiny, can this friendship between the two girls be lasting?

Taiwan's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1984