Papa, Can You Hear Me Sing
| Papa, Can You Hear Me Sing | |
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| Directed by | Yu Kanping |
| Music by | Su Rui |
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| Country | Taiwan |
| Language | Mandarin |
Papa, Can You Hear Me Sing (Chinese: 搭錯車) is a 1983 Taiwanese musical film directed by Yu Kanping (虞戡平) starring Sun Yueh (孫越) and Linda Liu (劉瑞琪). This film was released 8 times in Taiwan and 11 times in Hong Kong and won 4 Golden Horse Awards. The theme song Any Empty Wine Bottles For Sale (Chinese: 酒矸倘賣無) by Su Rui is also famous.
Da Cuo Cue (搭错车)(2005) is a popular 22 episodes TV series produced in Mainland China rewritting the film plot starring Li Xuejian (李雪健) and Li Lin (李琳).
The movie centres around the lives of a speech-impaired army veteran and his adopted daughter. He works as a bottle recycler either buying used bottles or picking up discarded bottles with his tricycle wagon. He lives within a shanty ghetto part of the city with his woman companion who is dependent on him bringing back a bottle of saki every evening. He is affectionately known as "Uncle" in the ghetto.
One morning, on one of his daily collection trips, he chanced upon an abandoned baby girl in a basket with an attached note that says "Please give baby Mei a good home." He brings baby Mei home to raise as his own.
However, his companion is visibly upset with the presence of baby Mei and with the attention he lavishes on baby Mei. The next evening, rather than his usual spending a portion of his daily proceeds on a bottle of saki, he decides to buy a can of powdered condensed milk for his adopted baby.
On reaching home, his enthusiasm is dashed along with the can of condensed milk his companion throws on the floor when his companion discovers she would have no saki but milk for the evening. His companion grows violent and bruises his eye. The next evening, on his return, he enthusiastically brings home a bottle of saki, but his home is silent. His companion had decided to leave him and had left baby Mei with a neighbour.
Mei's adopted father dotes on her and makes her the centre of his life. Her neighbourhood is also very protective of her. Along with the joys and travails of the shanty neighbourhood Mei shared with her father, she grows up into a beautiful young woman.
Mei meets a singer-song writer and they traverse the bar scene as a singing couple. They are talent-spotted by a record producer-manager who is looking out for new blood to replace his aging artiste. However the record producer only wants Mei, not her composer boyfriend.
Mei signs a contract with the producer as her manager. Her manager reinvents Mei's image by masking her native and Taiwanese Hokkien linguistic origins but portraying her as a product of a rich and respectable family who has since emigrated to the United States but that Mei had decided to stay behind to pursue her singing career. In doing that, her manager decided to sever her ties to her family, ghetto and native origins.
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