Kuei-Mei,A Woman
Year of Production: 1985
Director: Yih JANG
Casting: Huey-Shian YANG、Lih LEE
Synopsis
The film describes an obstinate and proud woman’s hard and charming life from her 28th year until she dies of disease at fifty four.The story begins in Taiwan in 1959, and lonely Kwei Mei comes to Taiwan alone, living temporarily with the family of her elder cousin. Every day she washes children’s clothes, prepares breakfast, lunch, and supper without rest. By deep night, she sleeps on the big bed of the whole family in a room, and hears her cousin and husband on the other side of the hanging separating sheet talking intimately. This lonely and disappointed old maid is reluctantly married to a man of middle age Hou Chia-Nien, whose former wife deserts him with another, so at once she becomes the step mother of three children.Kwei-Mei starts another stage of her life, and she has to serve her husband and educate her children, but her husband likes gambling, and always loses, and the children consider her as stepmother.Now she is conceived, and she pawns her jewelry for money in preparation for birth, but the money is stolen by her husband. When she goes to the gambling table to risk her life with her husband, she suddenly has pangs of childbirth……Kwei Mei’s difficult problem of life is not interrupted. To earn more money, she has to go to Japan with her husband as servants. The master permits her to bring two children only, so she has to make the difficult choice between her child and her step children. How does she decide?They are in Japan for a few years, and they earn enough money. She intends wholeheartedly return toTaiwan, but her husband is indulged in “Paradise” and vanity, what should she do? After return to Taiwan, how does she face her children? Facing the realistic life, how does she create enterprise and dignity from poverty?The children have grown up, but she suddenly contracts cancer. The restaurant “Home of Joffre”established by her finally becomes theobjective of striving for the division of property. Who really understands the sentiment of “Home of Joffre” for Kwei Mei’s concern over her native place on the mainland?Before Kwei Mei dies, who will accept “Home of Joffre” and continue operation?Similar details of life establish the image of a simple but unforgettable woman. Kwei Mei may not bewelleducated, but she sticks to some simple belief, and possesses real and permanent good virtue to husband, children, even the people, or society.
