Director: OUYANG Chun, aka TSAI Yang-Ming (歐陽俊/本名蔡揚名)
96 min｜35mm-to-digital｜In Mandarin with English subtitles.
NEVER TOO LATE TO REPENT is the pioneer of all Taiwan B-movies. The infamous, reformed criminal-turned-writer MA Sha plays himself in this film adaptation of his own memoirs, but director OUYANG Chun merges MA’s story with fictive and sensual elements. The film is an adrenaline-fueled ride of violence and decadence set deep in the red-light district. With his signature tattoos and wild performance, MA became a badass icon of Taiwanese social realist films.
OUYANG Chun was renowned director TSAI Yang-Ming’s pseudonym. TSAI was born in 1939, a star-turned-blockbuster director. Dubbed the godfather of Taiwanese gangster films, TSAI’s impressive filmography also extends to Wuxia, Kung fu, and the detective genres.
[Please note: the preservation of NEVER TOO LATE TO REPENT was made from the only two surviving prints of the film – a complete print without sound, and an incomplete print with partial sound and heavily degraded image. Though significant portions of the soundtrack are missing, the story is not affected. At present, this is the only way this landmark of Taiwanese genre cinema can be accessed.]
For more information, please visit Anthology Film Archive's website: Anthology Film Archives : Film Screenings.