The Outsiders 孽子

Film

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Feature Film
40th Anniversary

A high school student heads to Taipei’s cruising ground in this first screen adaptation of Pai Hsien-Yung’s novel Crystal Boys.

Information

Programme History

Part of Queer East Festival 2026

Director: Yu Kan-Ping
Runtime: 105 Mins
Year: 1986
Country: Taiwan

Now restored in 4K, this first screen adaptation of Pai Hsien-Yung’s groundbreaking 1983 novel Crystal Boys tells the story of A-Qing, a high school student who is thrown out of his family home after being discovered having sex with a man. A-Qing heads to the gay cruising ground of Taipei New Park, where he finds refuge with a group of fellow queer outcasts. The film’s heady mix of dreamlike fantasy, hysterical melodrama, and glitzy nightclub scenes creates a camp, surreal mood. Yet director Yu Kan-Ping succeeds in capturing the emotional rawness of A-Qing’s experience, and from our 21st century perspective, offers a nostalgic documentation of real-life sites in Taipei’s historical cruising scene, now long gone. Stunningly shot and restored to include previously censored material, this stylistically dazzling adaptation can now be appreciated in its full, hallucinatory glory.