Malie, the directorial debut of the famous Taiwanese actress Joyce H. Cheng, gives us a window into the struggles of a career woman who must straddle the gap between the old and new generations in contemporary Taiwan. While Taiwan’s film industry may be in the doldrums, this woman filmmaker injects a new vitality into the scene. The day of a date, Malie is informed that her mother is critically ilil, but she fails to visit her mother before she dies. According to Chinese myth, spirits linger on earth for 7 days before their journey to heaven, and during this period Mother’s spirit gets to worrying about her unstable daughter. Malie, who is stressed because of relations at work, her boyfriend, and her own family, quickly tires of mother’s incessant preaching. After 7 days, however, when her mother’s spirit is ready to leave, Malie eventually realizes the significance of her mother’s existence. Malie pinpoints the moment of self-reflection in the middle of family tragedy. The reality of Taiwanese women is not so different from that of women here in Seoul. (Denise Hyuk-sang Lee)