Daughter of the Nile (1987) centres around Lin Hsiao-yang (portrayed by pop star Lin Yang), a waitress in a fried chicken restaurant who yearns for a petty criminal and increasingly finds herself running a household without any help from the deadbeat males in her circle. Lin finds respite by retreating into the fantasy world of the Japanese comic book series Crest of the Royal Family. 

Edward Yang’s dissonant, mysterious third feature Terrorizers (1986) charts the trajectories, near misses, and collisions between three sets of people in Taipei, animated by self-interest and unable (or perhaps unwilling) to connect with each other.

The third of Hou Hsiao-hsein’s “coming of age” trilogy, Dust in the Wind (1986) tells the universal and archetypal story of a young couple from a small village who decamp for the big city, little prepared for the struggles that they will encounter upon arrival.

Using the sights, sounds, and surfaces of a modernizing Taipei as his material, Edward Yang fashioned his first masterpiece Taipei Story (1985), a piercingly insightful, multifaceted portrait of a relationship unraveling.