Arquivo / 49ª mostra

Xiao-feng completes his military service and settles in Taipei (Taiwan) with the objective of starting life anew, without having to return to his former job as a baker. Fei-fei is also in search of a new opportunity, this time with a will to succeed. Together with her friend Yili, Fei-fei works as a “betelnut beauty”. Wearing very short, provocative dresses, swaying their hips voluptuously, they sell a pepper seed that is very popular in all of Asia – “betelnut”, a nut similar to jaborandi that is chewed to produce an effect of euphoria similar to that of marijuana, much appreciated by taxi and truck drivers. Yili and Fei-fei are protected by a gangster, Ah-guang, that controls the trade in betelnuts in the region. Xiao-Feng lives in lodgings in “Betelnut Street”. He meets Fei-fei during a violent storm and falls in love with her. At the same time, in alliance with Ah-guang, he begins to steal. Xiao-feng and Fei-fei are going to cling to each other more and more, to face the hectic turmoil of the metropolis. Betelnut Beauty belongs to a series of six films (Tales of Changing China) that describe the recent social transformations that have occurred in Peking, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei.