Yang’s first theatrical feature film is an intriguing blend of melodrama and social critique that occasionally recalls Fassbinder’s cool theatricality. The contrasting stories told by two reunited friends—a famous concert pianist and a housewife— crystallize different facets of a changing Taiwan. The emergence of the independent career woman in That Day On the Beach marks the widening gap between the embittered and generally conservative older generation that fled the communist mainland and the youth flush with the beginning of Taiwan’s economic renaissance. The film also marks the debut of celebrated and influential cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who would famously go on to work with Wong Kar-wai and Gus van Sant.