Accidental Trio

New 4K restoration by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute

As the sun rises over a non-descript Taipei high-rise, three apartment dwellers independently decide to leave their humdrum families and follow their wandering eyes. A high school student is fed up with her buttoned-up father’s conservative rules. A dad sneaks away from his four rowdy kids and their nagging live-in grandparents. An office worker tells his wife he’s off for a work trip when in fact his old flame is visiting from the US. All want desperately to be led astray. And none have any intention of coming home after the sun sets.

On the surface, ACCIDENTAL TRIO is a classic morality play of Taiwan’s post-war “Healthy Realism,” a comedy of temptation and the wavering but steadfast power of home. But in director Pai Ching-jui’s hands, temptation is never so easily reined in. Teen star Chen Chen’s giddy defiance, the shimmering splendor and American pop tunes of the nightclub, and the seductions of the outside world represented by westernized would-be lovers are a cinematic come-hither to vice. Meanwhile, the film’s legendary theme song preaches “home sweet home” but reserves its most memorable lyrics for the wanderers who want anything but to return. Pai spices things up with Taiwan’s most lascivious zoom-ins and most lustful frames-within-frames. Long underappreciated outside of Taiwan, Pai’s decorative and impassioned aesthetic may lean excessive but it’s never accidental.

– Brian Hu

All films in the Taiwan Film Showcase (excluding screenings at Ultrastar Cinemas) are FREE for UCSD students, faculty, and staff with a valid ID.