Louis Yu, our Taiwan pop culture maven reports in on a real Western/ China collaboration.
Monga (艋舺) is a new movie set in the no-longer area of Monga in Taiwan, where Taiwanese gangster culture used to be popular. Because this movie is set in Taiwan, and gangster films come out of Taiwan only rarely, this film is getting a lot of press right now. The director and cast have been on the chat show/ celebrity roundabout for a while now.
The latest publicity for this film is that it features a single by Dead by Sunrise, side project of Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. Taiwanese press have made a huge deal of how the movie is about old Taiwanese gangster culture, but it features a song from a Western band. All these publicity seems to be playing in favour of the movie as press stress how suitable the song is and how fitting it is to feature this song in the movie. Last week Chester Bennington even held a press conference with the cast and director of Monga
I’ve included a promote clip with scene from the movie and the song from Dead by sunrise.
It seems that Linkin Park is really working at tapping into their market in China. They have big followings in both mainland China and in Taiwan and they are working every angle…
Hopefully a sign that more cooperation between China and the United States will be forthcoming in the future – hopefully near future