...catch the Taiwanese movie, Monga (艋舺)?

Monga is a historical district in Taiwan, which is known as Wanhua district today. Wanhua district is Taipei city's oldest district - it houses the Longshan temple, Taipei's oldest temple; the Huaxi Street tourist night market; and it also used to be Taipei's former "red light district". There were also gangs galore, with each of them taking their own "corners".

Monga, the movie, was set in 1980s Monga. At first, I thought it was a Taiwanese version of the old Young and Dangerous (古惑仔) series. I must confess I only watched a couple of the 古惑仔 movies, so my interpretation might be wrong, but I thought Monga was rather different.

The movie starts with a new kid (Wenzi) who has just transferred to a school in the district. He is always alone, has no friends, and is often bullied. However, he catches the eye of the most powerful gangster in school and soon becomes the fifth member of this gang.

The five boys soon become sworn brothers, get into fights with rival gangs, attend boot camp to be trained in all kinds of weapons (but no guns please, cos that's for weaklings, according to their lao da), start getting involved in the disputes of the older generation and fights over the turf in Monga, and eventually go into a downward spiral of betrayal. All in the name of BROTHERHOOD.

Sounds very run-of-the-mill stuff? But I thought the movie was very well shot and as it explored why each of the boys joined the gang, you could kinda identify with the characters and see why they eventually took the path they did. It doesn't glamourise the triad life, as HK triad movies tend to do so.

There was a fighting scene that the director wanted to shoot in one take and required hundreds of extras. His "friends" from the gangs sent down busloads of real gangsters (700 of them!!!) to help him film this scene at no cost. Apparently, after he shouted "cut", these people from rival gangs were still fighting and the director and the actors had to step in to break up the fights!

The fact that the movie was based on the director's own experiences when he was younger shone through as you watched the movie. Because you could feel that whatever you were watching was not staged, and that things really happened that way. I liked this authenticity about the movie. I think about 50% of the dialogue was in Hokkien as well - so you need to know your Hokkien. Reading the subtitles just doesn't cut it!