‘The Island That All Flow By’ Review: An Unlikely Romance Closes Sydney’s Taiwan Film Festival 2019

THE ISLAND THAT ALL FLOW BY is an unconventional bittersweet love story between a money-desperate toll booth collector and a puerile truck driver. This TV movie, written and directed by Chan Ching-lin, shines in all aspects with its delicate restrained scripting and excellent performances. It premiered on CTV and CTI Entertainment in April 2016.

Toll station worker Lin Chia-wen (Ivy Yin) is having difficulty with her rebellious teenage son Fu Yen-chao (Andrew Chen). Her son has been charged with sexual assault, and she has to pay a massive amount of money to cover the legal charges.

It is at this stressful time in her life when Chia-wen acknowledges the many advances of the very child-like truck driver Wang Chih-hao (Cheng Jen-shuo). As Chia-wen also faces losing her job, she transacts with Chih-hao to get paid a large sum every time she has sex with him.

The film then goes through dramatic twists and turns as Chih-hao meets her son, and both develop a stepfather-son bond, despite their clash in personalities. When Chih-hao runs out of money and can’t pay for the sex anymore, Chia-wen is faced with an emotional dilemma in whether to halt or continue their relationship. This is further exacerbated with her uncertain work future and that unyielding pressure to pay for her son’s charges.

The beauty of this TV movie is that it doesn’t feel like a TV movie. It has the technical quality of a well-made feature film in terms of its cinematic merits. At the centre of its strengths is its refusal to take the over-sentimental route in both content and style. Music is very understated and highly effective at that. The story and scripting itself are entirely rooted in reality, most notably the surprise ending, totally unexpected for a TV movie fare, and quite satisfyingly believable.

All performances are exceptional and particularly Yin in which she won the Best Actress award at the 19th Taipei Film Awards.

The Sydney audience of the Taiwan Film Festival will be in for a cathartic treat tonight as this Closing Night film pulls all the emotional punches with a romance that avoids the stereotypes and clichés and instead embraces what is real.

THE ISLAND THAT ALL FLOW BY (4/5)