2024 Taipei Film Festival opens with the world premiere of Doubles Match An audience of up to 1,000 moved by table tennis players’ burning passion With an all-star supporting cast, including Vivian Hsu, Rexen Cheng, Wei Man and Shih Ming-shuai, young
2024.06.21
Doubles Match, the 2024 Taipei Film Festival opening film, held its world premiere at Taipei Zhongshan Hall today (June 21). Director HUNG Po-hao led the all-star cast, including Vivian HSU, Rexen CHENG, SHIH Ming-shuai, WEI Man, Benjamin PENG and Lucas LEE, to attend the screening. Together with an audience of up to 1,000, they were moved by the burning passion shown in the table tennis games. Hung expressed, “This is the first time I watch my own film with up to 1,000 audiences at Taipei Zhongshan Hall. I feel very nervous, and I hope this film will remind the audiences of the purest dreams they had when they were children.”
A collaboration between the award-winning executive producers David TANG and Eric LIANG and director Hung Po-hao (Dad's Suit), Doubles Match tells the story of two young table tennis players, who vow to get selected for the national team in the future. The boys grow up together, supporting each other on their way to becoming world-class players, but nevertheless, cracks begin to appear in their friendship and trust in each other. As Benjamin Peng and Lucas Lee, two young non-professional actors, not only demonstrated excellent table tennis skills but delivered a natural and yet polished performance, they attracted great attention.
Director Hung expressed that back then, they spent so much time contacting the table tennis clubs for children and elementary schools all over Taiwan to look for children who played table tennis. Eventually, out of the more than five hundred candidates, they found Peng and Lee. Hung said, “Lucas is quite special because the character is left-handed, and he happens to meet this requirement. In the acting lessons, I noticed the great rapport between him and Vivian and decided to cast him.” When talking about his acting debut, Lucas Lee expressed that he did not find acting difficult; instead, to learn to play with both hands like the character was difficult. For Benjamin Peng, it was the opposite; he admitted that it was hard to convey the changes in the character’s emotions.
In addition, Doubles Match has a star-studded supporting cast. Vivian Hsu plays Lucas Lee’s mother, who works flat out to transfer her son to a school in the city so he would have better resources in physical education. Rexen Cheng and Wei Man play Benjamin Peng’s parents; after the mother (played by Wei Man) has died of illness, the father (played by Rexen Cheng) raises his son alone and proves himself to be a loving supportive father, who always encourages his son. Shih Ming-shuai plays the famous coach hidden in an old grocery store; he trains the players strictly and hopes that they will compete in the Olympic Games one day.
While talking about how to build a parent/child relationship in the film, Vivian Hsu shared an anecdote with the audience. In the acting lessons she participated with the young non-professional actors, the director asked her, “Which boy feels most like your son?’, and Hsu immediately set her eyes on the bright outgoing Lucas Lee. Hsu proudly expressed that Lee and Peng delivered such a brilliant performance that she hoped they would be nominated Best New Talent in the future. Furthermore, Hsu not only wrote the lyrics of the theme song but performed it, and it is a song that moves people to tears.
2024 Taipei Film Festival is held from June 21 to July 6 at Taipei Zhongshan Hall, Vieshow Cinema Xinyi and SPOT-Huashan Cinema. The Taipei Film Award ceremony will be broadcast live on CTS Main Channel and simultaneously on OTT platforms, including CHT MOD, Hami Video, 4g TV, Gt TV, LiTV, ofiii and Fain TV as well as overseas Dish TV, including CTS America Channel and ETTV America. It will also be streamed simultaneously on Taipei Film Festival official YouTube channel and LINE TODAY MOVIE. Offering the audiences a broad range of viewing options on TV and the Internet, we welcome everyone to this celebration of cinema. For more information, please go to Taipei Film Festival official website (https://www.taipeiff.taipei/tw/), Instagram (https://instagram.com/taipeiff) or Facebook Fan Page (https://www.facebook.com/TaipeiFilmFestival).
A collaboration between the award-winning executive producers David TANG and Eric LIANG and director Hung Po-hao (Dad's Suit), Doubles Match tells the story of two young table tennis players, who vow to get selected for the national team in the future. The boys grow up together, supporting each other on their way to becoming world-class players, but nevertheless, cracks begin to appear in their friendship and trust in each other. As Benjamin Peng and Lucas Lee, two young non-professional actors, not only demonstrated excellent table tennis skills but delivered a natural and yet polished performance, they attracted great attention.
Director Hung expressed that back then, they spent so much time contacting the table tennis clubs for children and elementary schools all over Taiwan to look for children who played table tennis. Eventually, out of the more than five hundred candidates, they found Peng and Lee. Hung said, “Lucas is quite special because the character is left-handed, and he happens to meet this requirement. In the acting lessons, I noticed the great rapport between him and Vivian and decided to cast him.” When talking about his acting debut, Lucas Lee expressed that he did not find acting difficult; instead, to learn to play with both hands like the character was difficult. For Benjamin Peng, it was the opposite; he admitted that it was hard to convey the changes in the character’s emotions.
In addition, Doubles Match has a star-studded supporting cast. Vivian Hsu plays Lucas Lee’s mother, who works flat out to transfer her son to a school in the city so he would have better resources in physical education. Rexen Cheng and Wei Man play Benjamin Peng’s parents; after the mother (played by Wei Man) has died of illness, the father (played by Rexen Cheng) raises his son alone and proves himself to be a loving supportive father, who always encourages his son. Shih Ming-shuai plays the famous coach hidden in an old grocery store; he trains the players strictly and hopes that they will compete in the Olympic Games one day.
While talking about how to build a parent/child relationship in the film, Vivian Hsu shared an anecdote with the audience. In the acting lessons she participated with the young non-professional actors, the director asked her, “Which boy feels most like your son?’, and Hsu immediately set her eyes on the bright outgoing Lucas Lee. Hsu proudly expressed that Lee and Peng delivered such a brilliant performance that she hoped they would be nominated Best New Talent in the future. Furthermore, Hsu not only wrote the lyrics of the theme song but performed it, and it is a song that moves people to tears.
2024 Taipei Film Festival is held from June 21 to July 6 at Taipei Zhongshan Hall, Vieshow Cinema Xinyi and SPOT-Huashan Cinema. The Taipei Film Award ceremony will be broadcast live on CTS Main Channel and simultaneously on OTT platforms, including CHT MOD, Hami Video, 4g TV, Gt TV, LiTV, ofiii and Fain TV as well as overseas Dish TV, including CTS America Channel and ETTV America. It will also be streamed simultaneously on Taipei Film Festival official YouTube channel and LINE TODAY MOVIE. Offering the audiences a broad range of viewing options on TV and the Internet, we welcome everyone to this celebration of cinema. For more information, please go to Taipei Film Festival official website (https://www.taipeiff.taipei/tw/), Instagram (https://instagram.com/taipeiff) or Facebook Fan Page (https://www.facebook.com/TaipeiFilmFestival).