Hip-Hop Storm
Director：Su Che-hsien
This is a documentary about two generations of hip-hop dancers.
“I’m 34 now and still dancing. Probably I won’t stop until I win,” said Alun. For him, hip-hop is his life, his oxygen. During the 90’s, when Taiwan was just liberated from authoritarian, he formed the first Taiwanese hip-hop group, “The Party”, and released two albums, even though he was subjected to vast pressure from the disagreeing eyes in the society. However, the group was somehow dismissed and the members simply went separate ways. Alun therefore went to Osaka, New York, Europe, Brazil and other places to explore different souls of the dance.
“He is totally nuts about hip-hop,” as described by his students. For most people, no one understands what he really wants to say, let alone what he really thinks. This documentary records the period between 2007 and 2008 when Alun participated in the world break-dance contest in Paris. In order to cover his travel expenses, he even taught the basic amateur dances, just because – “I’m a dancer and if I had never tried for even just once, I would always regret it.”
Another line of the story is about a dance group on the street of Taipei called “Eight Children”, which was formed by a group of high school students. They are of the new generation born in the 90's and they are only about half of Alun’s age. This new generation of hip-hop dancers doesn’t have the pressure from the disagreeing eyes of the society, and in instead, they are fully sponsored by the praise and encouragement to a hip-hop culture. “Eight Children” agreed one year ago that after this year’s college entrance examination, they would come back and take part in the upcoming hip-hop competition. Will they have a happy ending? Or, who cares? Hip-hop needs not to be serious. All in all, just keep dancing!
Director:SU Che-hsien
Born in Taipei. Graduated from TV & Radio Department of NationalTaiwanUniversity of Arts in 2005. Now studying in the Graduate School of Applied Media Arts for his M.F.A. degree. He used to make short fiction films and won several prizes. After participating in the production of the documentary film “My Football Summer”, he got interested in documenting the local people who have stories to tell.
From the Director
In the summer of 2007, I decided to make my first documentary and tried to find young hip-hop dancers on the street in Taipei. I was attracted to Alun at the first sight. He is not a talkative person. Most of the time, he does not finish his sentences. However, looking into his eyes when dancing, I can tell that he is as passionate as he was when he began to dance 17 years ago. Therefore, when I learned that he was going to participate in the world break-dance contest in France, I felt that it would be an arduous and challenging process for him. However, it seems that he didn’t think much. He said: “I’m going anyway.”
This 34-year-old dancer doesn’t usually show his disappointment and frustration. However, in the days in Paris, he couldn’t sleep because he was thinking about his future. Standing in front of the CDs of the hip-hop predecessor, Grandmaster, he asked himself: “I want to be as successful as those dancers, but did they succeed? What do they do when they got old? Sometimes I’m confused with hip-hop, is this the right thing to do?”
Alun is a lonely dancer and hasn’t got many long-term partners in his dancing career. Although we can not include his whole dancing life in this documentary, we can still see his attitude towards life: there is no specific plan, but there is always enthusiasm!
The dance group “Eight Children”, is pretty much the typical new generation teenager street-dance groups in Taipei. Maybe they are not so skilled as their predecessors, but their enthusiasm for dancing and the friendship between the eight kids are valuable. They show more ambition and dreams than those mediocre adults.
Film Festival
※Best documentary, The 47th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Award (2010)
※The 2nd Vancouver New Asia Film Festival, 2009
※The 7th GZ Doc, screening, 2009
※The 6th China Independent Film Festival, student/short competition, 2009
※The 32th Golden Harvest Awards for Outstanding Short Films