Monga is named for Mengjia, an old district of Taipei which has long been the domain of the local gangsters. Mosquito, the teenage son of a single mother, transfers to a high school in Mengjia but is bullied on the first day, until the Prince Gang intervenes and saves him. Growing up with no father and no friends, Mosquito joins the gang for brotherhood and friendship. He learns the way of the streets from the gang and its founder, Boss Geta. He asks the young kids to fight for brotherhood rather than benefit, and to fight with fists and never with guns. However, a mainlander gang holds just the opposite values and plots to take over Mengjia. These invaders put the traditional values of Mengjia to the test, along with the gangsters’ friendship and loyalty.

Director Doze Niu was a main Taiwan New Wave actor in the 1980s, which may explain why Monga bears three of the movement’s themes: the motif of coming-of-age and initiation, the street life of young gangsters, and the political issue of Taiwanese identity. The opposition between Geta’s Taiwanese/islander gang and Gray Wolf’s Chinese/mainlander group hints at the ethnic tensions of the KMT taking over Taiwan, and the domination of pistols over fists and modern capitalism over pre-modern values. After Geta is assassinated, however, the successor is neither his son Dragon (a Taiwanese-American) nor the charismatic Monk (a homosexual), but Mosquito, whose father is in fact a mainlander but who identifies with the Japanese “sakura spirit” and with Geta, the local father figure for Mengjia and, by extension, Taiwan.

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