When we see the history of film through the figure of the bianshi, the influence of vernacular drama (kabuki, glove puppetry, and pansori) is always immanent, that the birth of film is not simply a rupture with the legacy of the theater. In this vein, we can use Chen Chieh-jen’s idea of yaoyan film to ex-scribe a birthdate for yaoyan-style film. The year is 1926, in the moment in which Taiwan’s bianshi started to create countless anti-colonial film memories for audiences.

LEAP discusses with the curator Cuauhtémoc Medina the complex web of references in his curatorial and research work.