Under the loving and attentive lens of director Deng Wen-bin (鄧文斌), sweet and touching Taipei“postcard moments”have been captured on film. In fact, what are captured are actual postcards read aloud by travelers from four faraway lands who came to Taipei, touched by what they have seen and experienced. Travelers include the wonder-filled eyes of a seven-year-old boy from France, an elderly woman from Japan reminded of the cherry blossoms back home, a Spanish man with pen in hand who gives expression to his love for a woman, and a young woman who returns to the city and fondly recalls sunny days with classmates as a child.

These are the images that will caress your eyes and your emotions when you sit back to experience the film Fascinating Taipei (城市風采), the newest in a series of four films shown at the Discovery Center of Taipei in its comfy Discovery Theater. The other films, starting with The Formation of Taipei (城市身世), were first screened 6 years ago. In Fascinating Taipei, the motif of seeing this city through the eyes of people of widely varying cultures is a brilliant stroke, granting us novel views from mindsets from afar, and also fresh and intimate up-close discoveries.

The film's story opens on a plane as it glides in for landing, offering a majestic bird's-eye panorama of the Taipei Basin, encircled by mountains that head off in chains, peak after peak, into the distance. What follows is sketch after sketch of a painter's revealing portraits of the metropolis, interspersed with a series of“postcard moments.”The little French boy is bursting with excitement as he tells his father about the amazing natural sights he has just seen. Our Spanish friend transforms Taipei into a billet-doux (love letter) intended for his sweetheart. Our Japanese matron friend, inspired by the kindly warm-heartedness of the Taipei people, sends warm greetings to her old-time junior-high classmates. Finally, our young female friend goes on a meandering tour of the city, reacquainting herself with the streets that were once her home through which she carefree roamed.

The plush Discovery Theater is located on the fourth floor of the Discovery Center of Taipei. Easy-viewing ergonomics has been given top priority in the design, for this is a thrilling 360-degree viewing experience, the screen wrapping right around you. All the other facilities, and especially the sound and lighting system, is cutting-edge and custom-tailored for this venue, ensuring you an unforgettably stimulating sensory ride. Three films are presented as a trilogy in regular rotation—Historical Journey: The Formation of Taipei, Present: City Life, and Future: My Dream City —taking you on a thought-provoking voyage of discovery through the past, present, and desired future.

Fascinating Taipei brings to life what originally shown in the third film, My Dream City, showing the future face of the city, such as the fairytale-like ferris wheel atop Miramar Entertainment Park and the Taipei 101 tower, looking down over the entire world. But just as enticingly, it also clearly communicates, in exquisite detail, the deep-rooted genial and warm-hearted nature of local folk, something which many visitors comment on. Within the montages captured by the camera's lens, you may see honest and unaffected smiles always appearing amidst the city's bustling throngs, the current craze for bike-riding and healthy living, the attractive old-style life of simple rusticity of the 44 South Village (四四南村), the relaxed, just-be-yourself ambiance of the local night markets and their delicious traditional snacking delicacies, the raucous and boisterous vitality of the still-thriving lion dancing, dragon dancing, and puppet-theater traditions, and even the afternoon nap enjoyed by a local cat curled up in a corner of a second-hand bookstore. Up the main streets and down the narrow alleys, the meticulous, adventurous Fascinating Taipei lens leaves no cultural stone unturned.

The production team specially crafted the film to match the 360-degree sensurround experience of the Discovery Theater projection facilities, using a highly advanced camera with 12 lenses to capture every mise-en-scene in its 360-degree entirety. Though it runs just 15 minutes, Fascinating Taipei packs in a montage of 800 editorial cuts and 200 instances of special-effects animation, capturing Taipei's endless panoply of beauties in all their glorious richness. In the words of Lu Fei-yi (盧非易), an associate professor in the Department of Radio and Television of National Chengchi University, watching this film will make you“see Taipei afresh, and discover a new kind of emotion.”

【Discover Taipei2009年9月號】