In four interwoven chapters, Yours and Mine provides a glimpse of the life of several inhabitants of Taipei, from the highest rung of the social ladder right down to the lowest. For instance, we have the wealthy plastic surgeon Dr. Cheng, obsessed by money and possessions, among which he also counts his daughter who has been to school in America. Ah Ying is his housekeeper, both at home and at the clinic, and she is as selfish and obsessive as her employer. Fatty (played by Lin Cheng-sheng, the director of Murmur of Youth, also in the main programme) has a small restaurant and also does odd jobs. Mei-ling is the new all-too-dynamic nurse in the clinic. Finally, Ah Sing is a juvenile delinquent who gets mixed up in all kinds of things, from stealing cars to prostitution.Wang Shau-di wrote and directed his tragi-comedy based on the idea that our self-respect is largely based on what we possess. Those possessions – varying from an expensive house and car to our own body and the love of someone else – is protected just as fanatically as it is attacked: the council intervenes when the doctor illegally extends his clinic and Ah Sing takes the scalpel to his own penis, that he considers too small.
