Ahda, from Taipei, wants nothing more than to master the ancient Chinese 'art of flying', qinggung. Heavy bags of iron filings hanging from his ankles, he practices like a man obsessed. Mao, and old man who holds court in a park, tells him stories about the Red Lotus Company, a secret society of seven people who are reputed to have mastered qinggung. Three of them are supposedly still in Taipei. Ahda, goes in search of these teachers. He slowly finds answers to his questions and, thanks to his perseverance, is initiated into a mystical and sophisticated world. Alongside the complex narrative structure of , especially striking are the beautiful photography by Christopher Doyle, cameraman on e.g. Edward Yang's That Day on the Beach and Wong Kar-wei's Days of Being Wild, and the sound-track by the Japanese pianist-composer Fumio Itabashi.
- Director
- Stan Lai
- Country of production
- Taiwan
- Year
- 1994
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 1995
- Length
- 120'
- Medium
- 35mm
- International title
- The Red Lotus Society
- Language
- Mandarin
- Producers
- Performance Workshop, Long Shong International Co. Ltd Wang Ying Hsiang, Wang Ying-hsiang
- Sales
- Performance Workshop
- Cinematography
- Christopher Doyle