The Cabbie

Writer Su Chao-pin will attend the screening.

Black comedy at its finest, this box office success represented a threeway collaboration of odd talents. Co-director Chang is art film grandmaster, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s longtime producer, making his directorial debut alongside Chen, who was a former assistant director to Edward Yang (Yi Yi). Joining them is sophomore screenwriter, Su Chao-pin (a guest of this year’s festival and co-director of Reign of Assassins). With a script based on Su’s long years spent driving a cab, this wry meta-movie never stops boiling over with invention. Whether it’s addresses to the camera, ridiculously absurd set pieces or family dinners that fast-forward through the boring parts, it’s a movie that, even eleven years later, is so young, punchy and full of pep that you half expect it to hop off the screen and take you out for a night of beer and karaoke.