【Saturday Cinema】Places We Can't Reach – Enjoy the Scenic Beauty of Taiwan’s Island-Circling Journey

Written/Compiled and Reported by the Editorial Department of MOOK Scenic Spots Travel Life Network

Adapted from Taiwan’s bestselling book of the past seven years with the most single-volume awards, *Places We Can't Reach, So Let's Use Food Instead!*

Featuring a cast of seasoned Taiwanese film, TV, and theater actors alongside promising newcomers. Revisiting every real location where the story’s events took place, all shot on-site. Filming from winter to summer, from high mountains to the ocean depths, this sincere production traded time for one second of breathtaking scenery and perfect weather.

Would you go on a trip with someone you’ve only met eight times?

One is a swimming coach nicknamed “Taike” (played by Ethan Juan), and the other is a young director who has just lost his father (played by Bolin Lin). The two embark on a journey together just to find a bowl of daylily soup that the director drank with his father in Taroko Gorge as a child, and to fulfill the Taike coach’s dream of swimming in a Speedo with flying fish.

During their trip, the two accidentally stumble into a town buried by a landslide, the Plum Blossom Forest rumored online to have 36 hidden spots, and the “Thousand-Year Suspension Bridge” famous for love suicides... They keep meeting peculiar friends and continuously uncovering the deep secrets hidden in each other’s hearts...

If we had to describe the movie *Places We Can't Reach* in just three sentences:
“It’s a heavy motorcycle island-circling trip between a director who ‘has nothing left’ and a Taike who ‘wants nothing.’”
“They thought they could let go from then on.”
“But what they experienced turned out to be more than everything they’d been through before.” — Director Li Ding

“Ten years ago, a director received a phone call asking him to listen to the sounds of three types of heavy motorcycles over the phone. One of them had an especially low frequency, with a uniquely elegant tone.” Half an hour later, Director Li Ding personally met the owner, “Taike” Xu Junhao, riding this motorcycle called the “King of Straight-Line Acceleration,” the V-MAX. “I always felt this bike had a soul. That speedometer seemed to be calling to me with a mischievous expression, or maybe I just always wanted to sit on it from this angle, grip the handlebars, and speed off.”

Two days later, Taike Xu Junhao and Director Li Ding actually went on a heavy motorcycle trip. The director wanted to find the daylily soup he drank with his father during their first trip to Taroko Gorge as a child, while the Taike wanted the director to guide him to Orchid Island to swim in a Speedo with flying fish... And so *Places We Can't Reach* began.

“Because we wanted to find a bowl of daylily soup that I drank with my father during our first trip to Taroko Gorge as a child, we went on a motorcycle island-circling trip. It turns out the taste from memory can give you so much motivation.”

Back then, Director Li Ding and Taike set off on their trip with the grief of losing their fathers and the escape from marriage on their minds. Unexpectedly, they wandered into Xinyi Township, and this detour led them to meet a group of loyal and quirky friends. They ended up staying and joining the Christmas Eve caroling, which moved them even more. But the two didn’t stay to see Taiwan—“to be honest, it was because we finally saw ourselves. There’s nothing more precious or cherished than seeing yourself during a journey.” Their stories and lives thus began anew here, and then they rode their motorcycles across mountains, canyons, plains, and oceans, swimming in Speedos with flying fish in Orchid Island, transforming each other.

【Info】
*Places We Can't Reach*
Anywhere,Somewhere,Nowhere
Release Date: 2014-05-23
Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes
Director: Li Ding
Cast: Bolin Lin, Ethan Juan, Xiang Xi, Tuo Zonghua, Ben YU

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