Watch Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above For Free

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Best movie of this year hands down!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Fresh and Exciting

I have lived on this island for more than 30 years, and I never realize how lucky I am, how much fortune I have. OMG, Taiwan have so many amazing significant attractions. However, except those attractive natural landscape and its touching soundtrack, this film remind us human beings how selfish and cold blood we are, sucking, plundering this land without reluctance or second thought, where breed us, raise us and give us a warm home. Although knowing how we Taiwanese hurt and destroy our motherland is not a news for me, seeing the reality is always another thing !! Those unbelievable and unacceptable ugly truth ... over develop, resource wasting, improper disposal management, overwhelming farming ... etc many unbearable malice violence, are making our homeland collapse. If we keep ignore these intense warning, we will face deserved retribution which we might have no ability to deal with very soon!!

Living in this part of the world, Taiwan shouldn't be an unfamiliar tourist spot for us. Beyond our Facebook and Instagram photos with somewhat ridiculous sounding hashtags like #ILoveTaiwan and #TaiwanHoliday, how much do we really know about the East Asian state which has an area of 36193 square kilometers? Beyond the metropolitan area of Taipeiwhere you devour your enormous chicken fillets and oyster mee sua, how much do you know about the island formerly known as Formosa? In this day and age where we move faster than we think, is there relevance in understanding a country's heritage and history?Both a commercial and critical success, this 2013 documentary film has made its way to Singapore, and amidst the breathtaking visuals, it asks some important and somewhat grave issues which we, collectively as a human race, has chosen to ignore for the longest time. The 93 minute feature length production documents Taiwan completely in aerial photography. It is a tribute to Taiwan's natural beauty (something not many of us are aware of), and gained attention back home when it earned NT$11 million (S$458,336) in its first three days at the Taiwanese box office, a record opening for a documentary in the territory. The film went on to win the Best Documentary at the Taipei Golden Horse Awards, before making its way to several international film festivals.Directed by Chi Po Lin, a former civil servant turned aerial photographer, produced by prominent Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien and narrated by respected personality Wu Nien Jen (we love the script has a Chinese old school poetic romanticism), the film's first 10 odd minutes blows you away with its unbelievably awe inspiring shots of Taiwan's various well known spots. It begins to feel like a tourism promo reel, with Singaporean composer Ricky Ho's magnificent and operatic score. You feel a little overwhelmed (all the while wishing you have the opportunity to visit Taiwan soon to snap similar photos and share them on your social media platforms), and begin to wonder where this documentary is headed.Then it strikes you hard – the film begins showing you how human greed and negligence has damaged the island's beauty. You see how irresponsible environmental crimes affect Taiwan's mountains and coastline, and how this supposedly natural disasters like floods and landslides (which Taiwan often experiences) is nothing more than a result of human actions. You feel a little guilty because you remember wanting to enjoy mountain grown vegetables and sip mountain tea while staying in European inspired inns, just because travel brochures tell you it's the best way to enjoy Taiwan, and to a certain extent, to appreciate life. The documentary explains to you, in simple geographic terms, how this obsession with economic expansion may one day lead to the country's downfall.Yes, you may feel that the film is starting to get preachy, dishing you with environmental messages that you already know from elsewhere. But nothing works better than showing you visuals that leave you dumbfounded and shocked – an effect that's more far reaching than a horror movie. The chilling thought that the terrifying images you see on screen are due to fishermen, farmers and businessmen's doings is one you have to experience to understand the dire situation. This documentary may be Taiwancentric, but we all know this is a universal issue that needs to be dealt with urgently.Thankfully, the last 20 minutes of the film reminds us there is hope yet. When the film closes with one of our favourite on screen visuals this year – a choir singing an aboriginal tune on Yu Shan, Taiwan's tallest mountain peak, you'll step out of the cinema wanting to do your part for conservation. Next step, which is of utmost importance, is to actually making a conscious effort to protect this planet we call home.

Beyond Beauty is excellent. It is a work of love, sincerity and pride on the land of Taiwan. On the surface it looks like a BBC or National Geographic production. Shot in HD with mostly aerial shots, Beyond Beauty is almost a moving physical geography textbook or a tourism promotion clip showing the stunning and therapeutic natural wonders of Taiwan, a beauty we have never experienced because of the different perspective from the sky. What distinguishes this local production from the global documentaries, however, is the exposure of the saddening consequences of economic development – in agriculture, mining, fishing, manufacturing and tourism - which result in pollution and imbalance in the environment and climate change. It is red flagging us to pause and examine our priorities – it challenges what we have been doing to improve our lives and its threat in leaving a sustainable land and lifestyle for our descendants. The film also cites some examples of a few villagers who refuse to be developed/ modernized. Instead, they stick with organic farming to preserve the land for the generations to come.The dilemma of economic development vs environment protection probably exists in every country, regardless of their level of development. With powerful images of the soothing natural beauty contrasting the horrifying man-made damages laying in front of us, Beyond Beauty presents an alarming and overwhelming wakeup call for all mankind to care for our earth after making us so proud of our resources.The music performed by the Prague Symphony Orchestra perfectly highlights the masculine landscape while exemplifying the passion of the producers. When the film begins to depict the downside of recent economic development and its consequences, the music also follow suit.The sporadic yet compelling narration let the visuals tell the convincing story. I think it is more powerful than Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Highly recommended.

This documentary uses custom composed music with all aerial photography to convey Taiwan's beauty. The sheer scope of scenes from urban, suburban, rural, water, ocean, rivers, gorges, mountaintops (4000m heights, even), grasslands, rice terraces, etc. bring the user through an arc similar in feeling to BBC's "The Earth".An interview with the director on NTDTV brought this film to my attention. Despite having spent 1.5 years in Taiwan for family, I'd never known my homeland to have had such intense beauty. While the scenery may have been brightened and sharpened, the sheer variety and scale of the beautiful scenes kept me captivated.Custom composed music is soaring and inspirational in tone with great. Even in passages regarding Taiwan's environmental woes (overbuilding, waste, rising sea, earthquake damage, overwhelmed landfills, many exist), music suggests a hopeful sentiment, a prevailing Taiwanese attitude. Narration finishes the film's spirit that Taiwan is a special and unique land whose beauty is mostly unknown even to Taiwanese & Taiwanese-Americans themselves.Overall, this Golden Horse award winning documentary was greatly inspiring for both spirit, knowledge & tourism.