Mirror image = Ming dai zhui zhu

After his father has a stroke, Tung-chin (Lee Jiunn-Jye) finds himself in charge of the family business, a pawnshop. He is kept company by his girlfriend Eiko, a woman he met on the Internet when he went by the name of “No-line”, the origins of which are revealed: 3 months ago he fell from his scooter, scarring his hand and removing all traces of lines. He now considers himself free from the fate life has dealt him and dictated by circumstance. Eiko is determined to recover an image of his palm and restore his future. The majority of the film takes place in the shop, the couple’s ennui punctuated by card playing, dancing, and reading the palms of their customers once they manage to convince them that it’s a legal requirement. No-line meets a woman called I Know and they begin travelling the subway together hocking items from the store. A collaborator of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Hsiao Ya-chuan’s feature film debut gestures to Wong Kar-Wai and is a quirky tale of limited locales about manipulation, fate and the inability to avoid it. Satisfying in visuals rather than in the content it is exploring, the film was well received by critics in the Taipai Film Festival (2000) and Vancouver International Film Festival (2001): the director considered one of Taiwan’s emerging talents. Executive producers: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Hwrng Wern-Ying. In Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles.