Your Name Engraved Herein was a film that took me completely by surprise having only just debuted. Set in 1987, as martial law ends in Taiwan, Jia-han (Edward Chen) and Birdy (Jing-Hua Tseng) fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia and social stigma and soon find themselves battling with their feelings.

"I'd rather go to hell now. Don't all homosexuals deserve to go to hell? Maybe more people would understand me in hell. Make it easy for me and help me go to hell."

This has to go down as one of the best foreign films this year. The sombre, bleak and rather depressing tone that inhabits Your Name Engraved Herein is a testament to how LGBT relationships during the…

oh to be naked and hanging out at the beach with my high school love interest

“don’t you think things are more fun in the movies than in real life?”

It's a movie that will communicate to many, that the experience and struggle through life, just to live in a homophobic society, is understood and we're not alone. We already know how it’s to be a LGBTQI in this world. But imagine it back in 80s...

“If he doesn’t love you, don’t force him to”

I can relate to that, I've already been through a similar experience around my 13 yo when a boy who also seemed to like me didn't make it clear if we could get involved. He…

Love leaves scars.

When we first get them, we focus the searing sensation they inflict on us. As it happens, it can be the kind of agony we want to do nothing with. Until we do. Until time passes and we remember the reason why we have our scars. In the absence of that pain, we realize just how much the love we've felt is worth every ounce of the aching it leaves us with.

Your Name Engraved Herein, in its familiar but never less than profoundly affecting ways, is a collection of love scars put to film. It's a tenderly realized, attractive feature that understands the bittersweet reality of its beautiful story. The softness with which this is told…

this film had a great emotional depth to it and was quite immersive.
i also quite like the addition of quasi taiwanese 80s 'nostalgia'. in this rash of romanticised portrayals of the 70s, 80s and 90s in mainstream pop culture (à la stranger things, cmbyn, so on) you don't really get anything past the us/anglo look, and i thought the addition of the pop songs was a really cute and heartful touch.
visually i loved the scenes in taipei at night, those were gorgeous, and the epitome of a masterful use of colour. all in all it was a very pretty film.
the was Amazing. i was gripped by the story and invested very much by the outcome for the…