Road movies originated from North America thanks to its vast land and the growth of the automobile industry. Taiwan’s road movie genre hasn’t yet reached its mature form, but this allows the genre to have more possibilities, unrestricted by existing formulas. Despite its small size, Taiwan boasts a variety of landscapes, diverse coastal and circular routes, along with various modes of mobility such as riding motorbikes or bicycles, and travelling on foot. These qualities give Taiwanese road movies distinctive local characteristics. 1959’s Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan is considered the prototype for Taiwanese road movies.

After half a century, the genre has developed into three main types: personal growth during a coastal trip, land and social concerns, and restricted movements in the city. From 2006, films started to emerge that depicted scenic coastal road trips, the characters experiencing personal growth and acquiring new understanding of the world as they move; homeless diasporas and destinationless migration that captures the chance encounters of strangers and the ripples these encounters create; and the circular movement of characters inside cities, hinting at the frustrations of inexplicable plight while expounding a kind of modern violence in a heartless metropolitan landscape.