VENICE, Italy (AP) _ Hong Kong-based director Yonfan's
«Prince of Tears» premieres Friday at the Venice Film
Festival 20 years to the hour after Golden Lion-winner
«City of Sadness,» the last major film to confront a
painful period of Taiwanese history known as the White
Terror.
    «That's naughty,» Yonfan said, smiling, when asked about
the timing of the premiere in an interview overlooking the
Mediterranean.
    «Prince of Tears,» which is competing for the coveted
Golden Lion, tells the story of the Sun family _ an air
force pilot, his beautiful wife and two daughters, living
in a military-dependent village in southern Taiwan, more
privileged than the general population but not immune to
the fear spreading through an anti-communist campaign on
the island.
    The White Terror refers to the period after the
nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek relocated to
Taiwan from China. It imposed martial law and strict
one-party dictatorship in 1949, and in subsequent years
imprisoned, tortured and killed political opponents.
    During that period of «national hysteria,» the movie
states that 3,000 people were sentenced to death, 8,000
people were imprisoned and sentenced for a collective total
of 10,000 years in prison.
    For years, the subject of the White Terror was taboo,
Yonfan said. The formal taboo was lifted when martial law
ended in 1998, and Hou Hsiao Hsien's «City of Sadness,»
which tells the story of the brutal crackdown on dissidents
in Feb. 28, 1957, appeared a year later.
    But still, the Asian film industry has shied away from the
subject, seeing it as too financially risky, Yonfan said.
    «I think many producers, they would think it is not
appropriate to do a commercial movie on the White Terror,
and no one's interested in watching the movie because
nobody wants to see it,» Yonfan said. «But the movie is
important to me. I grew up during the '50s in Taiwan. And
it is the things that I see and I hear and I feel of that
period. I would say this movie is an expression of my
childhood.»
    Because the movie was so important to him, Yonfan financed
it himself to retain his artistic freedom. But he said he
still faced difficulties developing the film because of its
subject, and that only acceptance to the Venice Film
Festival helped secure its distribution so far in Taiwan,
Hong Kong and France. Without that, the film «probably
would have had a harder time,» Yonfan said.
    The core plot is based on the true story of what happened
to the Sun family _ not the real family name _ when the
parents came under suspicion of communist leanings, but
Yonfan populates his first movie ever shot in Taiwan with
characters and memories from his own childhood.
    There's the young, beautiful and wealthy Shanghai-born
wife of General Liu played by Terri Kwan, who conspicuously
jangles her necklace of 266 pearls, and her loyal driver,
played by Jack Kao, who also appeared in «City of
Sadness.»
    Joseph Chang plays the air force pilot Sun Han-Sun, who is
imprisoned because of a flight made years before to get his
eldest daughter out of mainland China. For this, he is
accused of being a communist spy and executed. His best
friend could clear him, but he is in love with Sun's wife,
played by Zhu Xuan making her big-screen debut.
    While the movie is set as political terror begins to
spread, Yonfan said «Prince of Tears» isn't a historical
reckoning with the period but actually a film about
betrayal.
    He also did not strive for strict accuracy. Movie posters
that appear on the walls might be from films that appeared
after 1954, the year depicted in the film. A film clip
shown in a school yard was from a film that came out in
1959.
    «That is my childhood memory. Many of the things might
not be true to the history of 1954. That doesn't matter to
me. Sometimes your memory can be wrong. I use the word
postmodern,» Yonfan said.
    To develop the core story, Yonfan said he spoke
extensively with both of the now grown daughters of the air
force pilot. The elder daughter took him to the field where
her father had been buried, though she was unable to ever
identify his remains.
    «After making the movie, I felt I owed the father
something,» Yonfan said. He asked «City of Tears»
director Hou Hsaio Hsien to join him.
    «We went there with the elder sister, we went to the
burial grounds and we burned incense and burned papers. We
did the ceremony in the open air, because we don't know
where he is,» he said.