Key Takeaways (At a Glance):
- The Hidden Cinema: During Taiwan’s oppressive 38-year martial law period (1949-1987), strict governmental censorship inadvertently birthed a clandestine “ob/scene” film culture where adult scenes were illegally inserted into regular movies.
- Taiwan Pulp vs. New Wave: While internationally acclaimed Taiwanese New Wave films (like A Brighter Summer Day) often punished female promiscuity, “Taiwan Pulp films” of the late 70s and early 80s featured alluring, violent, and unapologetic female avengers.
- The “Cat and Mouse” Rebellion: Watching these smuggled, fragmented spectacles became more than just a search for instant gratification; it served as a subtle act of political defiance against the authoritarian Kuomintang regime.
- The Rise of the Sexy Goddesses: Italian Giallo star Edwige Fenech and Taiwanese actresses like Shiao-Feng Lu became iconic symbols of this underground fandom, merging foreign cinematic allure with domestic exploitation.
Following World War II, Taiwan endured one of the longest periods of martial law in modern history (1949-1987). Under the strict, authoritarian grip of the nationalist Kuomintang party, cinema was heavily policed. Female pleasure onscreen was officially deemed “obscene” and strictly repressed. However, as film scholar Linda Williams reminds us, the etymological root of the word obscene literally means “off-stage.”
The film history commonly peddled in textbooks presents a highly sanitized version of Taiwanese cinema, completely overshadowed by the auteurism of the Taiwanese New Wave on the international stage. But while explicit cinema was rendered illegal and kept off-stage, it nonetheless found its way to the margins. Through surreptitious screenings and hidden projection rooms, an alluring, culturally lowbrow cinema thrived.
By analyzing the contrast between revered cinematic classics and disposable exploitation films, we can unearth a dark, fascinating page of Taiwanese film history—one where female avengers, Italian Giallo queens, and rebellious audiences collided in the dark.
A Tale of Two Protagonists: Ming vs. Wan-Ching
To understand the marginalized status of Taiwan’s exploitation cinema, we must look at how female characters were treated across different genres.
In the denouement of Edward Yang’s internationally acclaimed masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day (1991), the female adolescent protagonist, Ming, is tragically murdered by a teenage boy. Her “punishment” with a Japanese tanto knife is framed as a tragic consequence of her having multiple affairs. Ming’s “girl-next-door” image, punished for her promiscuity, has enjoyed immense longevity and respect in global film circles.
By stark contrast, Chia-Yun Yang’s 1981 film Lady Avenger presents a wildly different female protagonist. Wan-Ching executes a well-planned, bloody revenge against the men who wronged her using a long katana. Unlike Ming, Wan-Ching is active, alluring, and dangerous. Lady Avenger belongs to a boom of over 117 lowbrow, sensational films produced between 1979 and 1983. Suffused with brutal violence and seductive female bodies, film scholar Ting-Wu Cho aptly termed this era “Taiwan Pulp films.”
While Ming’s tragedy is celebrated as high art, Wan-Ching and the other seductive lady avengers of Taiwan Pulp are often dismissed as a disposable “dark page” of history. In both cases, female pleasure is ultimately disavowed by the narrative (Wan-Ching is handcuffed and sent to jail to restore patriarchal law and order). Yet, it is within these pulp films that we can attempt to reclaim female agency and highlight how viewers gleaned transgressive pleasures from these problematic representations.
The Cinema of Attractions and “The Insert”
How did audiences actually view these repressed films during martial law? In her dissertation on erotic film viewing, Hsuan-En Chan reveals a fascinating Foucauldian dynamic between the Taiwanese surveillance state and underground theater owners. It was a perpetual “cat and mouse” game.
Starting in the 1950s, theaters would publicly screen regular, censored films. However, projectionists would surreptitiously insert “ob/scene” sequences—often smuggled from foreign adult films—directly into the middle of the movie. These inserts had absolutely no relation to the plot. Theater owners installed electric bells to warn the projection booth when government commissioners or police arrived, allowing them to instantly switch back to the sanitized film.
This phenomenon perfectly embodies Tom Gunning’s concept of the “Cinema of Attractions.” The audience was not there for narrative continuity or deep emotional catharsis. They were there for the immediate, exhibitionist thrill of the spectacle—the raw immediacy of “Here it is! Look at it.” Furthermore, attending these illegal screenings became a quiet form of political rebellion. In an era where social activists were jailed or murdered, witnessing forbidden spectacles offered a safe release of rebellious curiosity against the state.
Giallo Queens and Taiwan Pulp Goddesses
Because domestic adult production was forbidden, a massive screen quota policy indirectly fueled the smuggling of foreign exploitation films. American grindhouse, Japanese Pinku eiga, and notably, Italian Giallo films flooded the Taiwanese underground market.
Giallo (Italian for “yellow,” referencing cheap pulp novels) offered mysterious crimes, psychological thrills, and intense sexploitation. Actresses like Edwige Fenech—star of Sergio Martino’s All the Colors of the Dark (1972)—became absolute “sexy goddesses” for adult cinema audiences in Taiwan. Her foreign allure functioned as a buffer, allowing audiences to project their desires safely onto an imported fantasy. Theater owners would even falsely advertise regular films under Fenech’s name just to guarantee a sold-out crowd.
This fervor eventually paved the way for domestic stardom when Taiwan Pulp films began legally dancing around the censorship laws. A trinity of prolific Taiwanese actresses—Yi-Chan Lu, Shiao-Feng Lu, and Hui-Shan Yang—dominated the screen in the late 70s and early 80s. With their spicy outfits, exaggerated marketing slogans, and penchant for on-screen vengeance, they invoked the exact same collective desire as their Italian Giallo counterparts.
The Lingering Flicker of the Past
Today, the physical traces of this censorship still haunt the surviving prints of Taiwan Pulp films. Due to aggressive self-censorship and government cuts, modern viewers can literally feel the “jumps” where a bloody hook or a naked body was sliced from the celluloid reel.
These jump cuts act as a cinematic flicker—a rapid alternation of presence and absence. They serve as permanent, material scars of a repressive regime. Yet, just as the audience in the 1980s waited eagerly for the next smuggled insert, modern film historians are finally looking past the abrupt cuts to recognize the immense cultural, political, and feminist significance hidden within the vibrant, bloody colors of the Lady Avengers.