Din Tao: Leader of the Parade

阵头

Taiwan, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 123 mins.

Director: Feng Kai 冯凯.

Rating: 4/10.

Generational drama set in a Taiwan drumming troupe is over-long and way too local.

STORY

Taizhong, central Taiwan, the present day. After rebelling against his father, Da (Chen Bozheng), and going to Taibei to study music, Tai (Ke Youlun) finally quits his studies and returns home, where the family-owned din tao 阵头 troupe, Jyou-Tian, is barely managing to still scrape a living. Tai’s mother (Ke Shuqin) welcomes him back, but his father still thinks he is a loafer and disrespectful towards the gods whom din tao performances honour. The other young people in the troupe, including Xin (Wu Yongbin), Gui Quan (Li Yuchen) and the tomboyish Minmin (Lin Yuxuan), are initially hostile towards him for running away. Da reluctantly accepts into the troupe another young person, the autistic Pear (Xu Haoxuan), whose parents can no longer look after him. A rival din tao troupe, led by Wu Zheng (Liao Jun), challenges Da’s troupe to a decisive contest, on the understanding that Tai takes over leadership of the troupe from his father. Tai is given six months to prepare the troupe; if they lose, they agree to leave Taizhong for ever. Tai sets to work, training the young members in fresh new techniques; but it’s an uphill battle, and he faces opposition from his own father, who still believes his son is unworthy of the job.

REVIEW

The charitable view of the local success of Din Tao: Leader of the Parade 阵头 is that it was due to the casting of two local singers, rocker Ke Youlun 柯有伦 (son of late actor-director-stuntman Ke Shouliang 柯受良 [Blackie Ko]) and boybander-turned-actor/fashion designer Huang Hongsheng 黄鸿升, with a storyline about a musical black sheep reviving his father’s folk drumming troupe that played directly into Ke’s raw appeal as a performer. The less charitable view – at least for the future of Taiwan’s film industry – is that the movie, set in the island’s third city of Taizhong and 95% in the local Hokkien dialect, tapped into Taiwan audiences’ growing need for films celebrating local identity and grassroots culture at a time when Mainland cinema has effectively reduced the Hong Kong and Taiwan industries to regional businesses.

Whatever the case, the movie on its own terms is an unremarkable, rather obvious generational drama that’s way too discursive and, like other local hits such as Night Market Hero 鸡排英雄 (2011), fails to make a virtue of its aggressively local flavour either on a dramatic or emotional level. Din Tao is professionally enough put together by longtime TV director Feng Kai 冯凯, and features good performances by Ke (in a kind of beefier version of the patented mumbly-rebel persona patented by Zhou Jielun 周杰伦 [Jay Chou]), Ke Shuqin 柯淑勤 as his supportive mother, and veterans Chen Bozheng 陈博正 and Liao Jun 廖峻 as his stubborn father and rival troupe leader. But the script – inspired by the real-life Jyou-Tian Folk Drum & Arts Group 九天民俗枝艺团 – keeps retreading the same ground of cross-generational battles between father and son before turning into a glorified travelogue for central Taiwan and an advertisement for Taizhong as a “cultural and international city” in its latter stages. The film’s ending is a straight celebration of the real-life troupe.

Few of the relationships, and especially the central one, catch light emotionally or work beyond the obvious cliche of Ke Youlun’s rebel representing the young generation and Chen’s fuddy-duddy father representing traditional values. And despite being set in the world of local, religious drumming groups, the drama is not so far removed from that of another local hit, Monga 艋舺 (2010), with constant brawling and everyone behaving as if they’re in some kind of benign version of a gangster movie. The underlying theme of burying one’s differences to succeed as a group, while maintaining one’s self-respect, is fine – but it’s played out on a very simplistic level, with Ke’s character not given much depth and his transformation from slacker into leader not convincing. The most affecting of the younger performances is, in fact, that by Lin Yuxuan 林雨宣, as a tomboyish rebel who has a soft spot for the sulky hero.

When Ke is finally let loose, and traditional drumming is combined with modern rock, the effect is undeniably striking, especially with the souped-up music track. But at two hours Din Tao is a long haul to little benefit. The title is the dialect pronunciation of 阵头 (zhèn tóu in Mandarin), the name for the Hokkien temple performance style using dance and drums.

CREDITS

Presented by Magnificent Film Entertainment (TW), Grand Vision Entertainment (TW). Produced by Magnificent Film Entertainment (TW).

Script: Feng Kai, Xu Zhaoren, Zhuang Shihong. Photography: Jin Xin. Editing: Gu Xiaoyun. Music: Lv Shengfei. Art direction: Lai Yongkun. Costumes: Wang Fengru. Sound: Du Duzhi. Action: Wu Rupin. Din Tao direction: Zheng Kunyong. Din Tao consultancy: Xie Yuelong.

Cast: Ke Youlun (Tai), Huang Hongsheng (Xian), Ke Shuqin (Tai’s mother), Lin Yuxuan (Minmin), Liu Pinyan (Xiaobi, TV reporter), Liao Jun (Wu Zheng), Chen Bozheng (Da, Tai’s father), Zheng Zhiwei (Betelnut Cheng), Fang Wenlin (Pear’s mother), Yang Qi (Betelnut Cheng’s wife), Gao Ming (Chan, Tai’s teacher), Chen Shufang (Xin’s grandmother), Xia Jingting (Xin’s father), Yang Shaowen (Fei’s father), Li Liren (Gui, Gui Quan’s elder brother), Tao Jingying (MC), Hu Zhiqiang (Taizhong City mayor), Wu Yongbin (Xin), Chen Shimin (Maria), Yang Zhenzhen (Fei/Fattie), Li Yuchen (Gui Quan/Devil Dog), Xu Haoxuan (Lizi/Pear), Chen Yiwen (young Tai).

Release: Taiwan, 20 Jan 2012.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 4 Apr 2013.)