A-Cheng falls in love with Hsiao-hui, a beautiful prostitute who sells herself to a brothel to pay off his debts. On the run from both criminals and the police, the star-crossed lovers flee through Taiwan. The sensitive and conflicting interracial relationship between A-Cheng from the south, and Hsiao-hui from a military community, makes the road trip seem rough and dangerous, full of turbulence and turmoil, and loaded with the weight of developing urban space and Taiwanese history.

The Farewell Coast could be considered Taiwan’s first road movie. Using life in the lower-level underworld and socially marginalized people in urban areas as its backdrop, the north-south axis of the escape route navigates a journey into the city and back home. The several crisscrossing lines that WAN Jen weaves in The Farewell Coast run through almost all of his works: lower-class nobodies, political critique, provincialism and race issues, introspection on Taiwanese history, exploration of urban space, and profound images of the female.

DVD source： Taiwan Cinema Toolkit, Ministry of Culture, R.O.C.