The Sandwich Man (1983 film)

The Sandwich Man
Poster of The Sandwich Man
Chinese兒子的大玩偶
Hanyu PinyinEr Zi De Da Wan Ou
Directed byHou Hsiao-hsien
Wan Jen
Tseng Chuang-hsiang
Screenplay byWu Nien-jen
Story byHuang Chun-ming
Produced byWu Zhongling
StarringChen Bozheng

Yang Li-Yin
Tsui Fu-Sheng
Cho Sheng Li
Chiang Hsia

Yen Cheng Kuo
CinematographyChen Kun-Hou
Edited byLiao Ching-Song
Music byWen Longjun
Release date
  • September 2, 1983 (1983-09-02)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryTaiwan
Budget$5,000,000

The Sandwich Man (Chinese: 兒子的大玩偶; pinyin: Erzi de da wan'ou) is a 1983 Taiwanese film. The film project was proposed and put into plan by Hsiao Yeh (小野)and Wu Nien-jen (吳念真). It was directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien and two other then-new directors, Tsang Jong-cheung (曾壯祥) and Wan Jen (萬仁). The script by Wu Nien-jen is based on three stories from Huang Chun-ming's short stories collection The Taste of Apples. The three stories together vividly portray the society of Taiwan during the Cold War period when it underwent industrialization with help from the United States. The film is regarded as a hallmark at the beginning of Taiwanese New Cinema.[1]

The title of the film is derived from the film's first namesake vignette, The Sandwich Man also known as The Son's Big Doll.[2] Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, it depicts the hardship of a young man who ekes out a bare living for his young family by putting on clown makeup and costume to be a walking movie advertisement board.

The second vignette Vickie's Hat is directed by Tsang Jong-cheung. It depicts a fresh young salesman's disillusionment with the fairytale of modernization, when one of the Japanese pressure cookers he tried to sell to villagers accidentally exploded during a demonstration and critically wounded his colleague.  

The third vignette The Taste of Apples is directed by Wan Jen. It portrays the poverty of a family living in the ghetto of Taipei City by showing how they could stay in a clean place like an American Navy hospital and have a taste of an apple only after the father was luckily hit by an American colonel's car.

  1. ^ "Taiwanese Cinema". Archived from the original on 2008-07-05. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  2. ^ "The Sandwich Man: The Son's Big Doll, 1983 – Strictly Film School". 2017-12-24. Retrieved 2023-06-25.