SCFF 2025 Film Review: INTIMATE ENCOUNTER
Intimate Encounter
A Review by Heng Wei Li
In the years following COVID-19, a small movement in cinema across the world was keen to explore the world-wide pandemic, and how it affected and changed our lives. Intimate Encounter by veteran Taiwanese director Chang Tso-Chi follows in this new tradition, though the pandemic serves less as a central focus point and more of a time and place that emphasizes the film’s themes.
Set just past the peak of the pandemic, we follow Ah Xun (played by Cheng Hsun Lin), who has just returned back to Taiwan after an extended time away. Living with his grandfather in a simple flat, he finds himself getting in touch with old friends, new neighbours, and the ever-marching passing of time.
There is a meticulously planned spirit of mundanity to
Intimate Encounters
in the way it presents Xun’s character, his interactions with everyone around him, and vice versa. As per the title, Chang Tso-Chi builds the film primarily on intimate encounters between its characters. He zeroes in on the small-talk, the chit-chat — letting us learn more about their lives with Xun as the main anchor for the majority of the scenes. This focus on the characters’ conversations help in a big way to introduce new characters and backstory relatively bluntly, yet the sheer intimacy of the scene is able to assuage most of the whiplash that might bring.
Indeed, the film is introspective in nature, highlighting this feeling of being complacent in the current pace of your life without much reason to strive for more. Coming back to Taiwan in the midst of a global pandemic, having left prior due to a family tragedy, Ah Xun is left isolated and yearning in spirit. The camera follows behind him as he travels, as though we are walking right behind him, and we carry along as he has his conversations and lives his life, each experience is another insight into his character, clearing through this fog of mundanity the pandemic placed in all of us.
While there are some plot decisions that I’m not convinced about, especially in scenes where the intimate encounters (which are central to the storytelling) are presented in more abstract ways, Intimate Encounters remains a low-key yet ultimately hopeful piece. Time will continue to move on, the crippling apathy caused by the pandemic and quarantine will slowly fade away, and all we can do is to make sure that we are ready to push forward.
INTIMATE ENCOUNTER is screening at Singapore Chinese Film Festival 2025. For more information and tickets, visit: scff.sg
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About the author: Wei Li Heng is an avid lover of uncovering and writing about obscure and underseen Asian cinema. He hopes to discover local cinematic gems and share them to a wider audience.
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