I missed this movie when it was shown at the Spring Film Festival in Shangri-La last month so I was ecstatic when my friend Luke offered to lend me a copy!
"Cape No. 7" is important for many reasons: 1. It is Taiwan's highest grossing movie of all time, earning 50 billion taiwan dollars (bulk of which is from its immense DVD sale). They made it at just 5 million taiwan dollars so the profit is more than ten-fold; 2. This was Taiwan's submission at the Oscar's Best Foreign Film Category (although it didn't quite make it); 3. It is a great movie with a heart warming story and beautiful music!
In the film, a local band is hastily formed to play alongside a Japanese star invited for a big event in a seaside resort. Against all odds, different characters come together for the event. Foremost of whom is Aga (brooding looker Van), an angry man who failed to make a splash as a musician in Taipei. Aga moonlights as a postman, but most of the letters remain undelivered, stocked in a basket in his room! Japanese expat Tomoko (Chie Tanaka) is keeping the group together - she is the "band's" glorified production manager. In the center of their preparations is a 60 year old letter from Japan that has to be delivered to an old woman whose address in Taiwan is unknown. Sigh.
If you love romance and music, Te-Sheng Wei's "Cape No. 7" shouldn't be missed!
Monosyllabic Taiwanese actor Van is electric. He is a reluctant postman by day, a belligerent musician by night - and an angry soul most of the time!
Chie Tanaka is Tomoko, a former Japanese beauty queen and a present-day glorified events coordinator and the manager of a bumbling band.
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