Locust
Qumra Projects
/ Feature Narrative / Taiwan, United States of America, France, Qatar / 2023
In Mandarin, Taiwanese
Rated: This film has not been rated.
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Synopsis
Taipei, June 2019 - one of the hottest summers on record and an election year. Yet, despite the tense and unpleasant atmosphere, millions of ordinary Taiwanese people persisted and tried to live their everyday lives. Zhong-Han, a mute twenty-nothing from the countryside, lives a meaningless existence in Taipei. During the day, he works at a struggling street eatery for a kind elderly man, Ah-May, who’s taken him in, earning just enough to survive. At night, he finds various outlets for his pent-up boredom, whether it’s making some extra cash helping a local gang collect debts and pick fights or getting wasted and writhing the night away at underground electronic dance clubs.
When the eatery’s ownership changes hands to an ambitious landlord with designs of his own, it sets forth a tumultuous chain of events that spans all levels and realms of society. Zhong-Han will find himself caught in the middle of it and, throughout the film, learn about family, friendship, love, respect, and power—namely, how it inevitably corrupts all. In a world full of injustice, he will learn how to make his own, and in a society full of people without voices, he will find out that a man who cannot speak can still have so much to say with two fists in one night.