Rebels of the Neon God – Qing shao nian nuo zha (1992)

Directed by: Tsai Ming-liang | 107 minutes | crime, drama | Actors: Chen Chao-jung, Jen Chang-Bin, Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-Ching, Miao Tien, Wang Yu-Wen

Taiwanese teenager Hsiao-Kang leads a lonely and misunderstood life. His overprotective mother confuses love with pushiness. His father, a hard-working taxi driver, largely leaves him alone. Both don’t mean so bad, but because of the lack of real affection, all those intentions get bogged down in no man’s land. At school he is no more than a number, a ghost figure among all the other anonymous shadows. At home there is unrelenting boredom. The chapter starts over every day. Shouldn’t there be more to life than this mind-numbing captivity, the boy constantly wonders.

However, the idea of ​​freedom drenched in independence also has its downsides, as the slightly older Ah Tze proves. The young man spends his days in one of the many arcades in the Taiwanese capital Taipei. In the evenings, he goes out with his best friend to clear public payphones of their money. Parents are not in the picture, paid work is an annoying interruption of his free time. He lives in a dilapidated apartment, which fills up with water all the time. It hardly bothers him that he is not part of society. Why be someone, when society makes you a nobody. His unconcerned and anti-authoritarian attitude to everything else results in loneliness also dominating him. Freedom is an insidious illusion. Ah Tze is also trapped in hopelessness.

For example, ‘Rebels of the Neon God’ switches back and forth between two extremes of a generation that is searching for the meaning of existence. The difference with the previous generation, full of hard workers, destinies and a firm faith in (super) faith, is great. But that does not immediately mean that young people are just lazy, indifferent and immoral. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. This is apparent, for example, from the imagery of ‘Rebels of the Neon God’. The camera runs almost the entire film stationary in the background. The goal is to record, not to conduct. The question of guilt is therefore completely open. Generations change simply because time forces them to. The harder the older generations will try their best to keep everything the same, the harder the young will fight against it. In that view, ‘Rebels of the Neon God’ can be seen as a more modern, Taiwanese take on the equally ill-fated James Dean classic ‘Rebel without a Cause’.

In the generational difference, which also manifests itself between the teenage Hsiao-Kang and the slightly older Ah Tze, there is an oppression that is difficult to escape. It’s like the rain, which keeps falling irrevocably in ‘Rebels of the Neon God’. As time goes on, precipitation will fall from the sky. Perhaps not too optimistic, but filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang, who made his debut with ‘Rebels of the Neon God’, brings it with the greatest emotion. Masterful movie.