Winds of September (Taiwan, 2008)
See, I'm a bit confused by this film. Is it glorification of a bunch of high school delinquents, or is it a social morality play?

When I first viewed it, I hated it. There were hints that it was a bad film in the first 10 minutes – always a bad sign. The acting looked self-conscious or the direction was poor and got unnatural acting out of the actors.

From there it got worse. The movie is about a supposedly tight-knit clique of 7 high school boys who are a bunch of bad apples. These guys get into trouble and then they get into more trouble and then they get each other in trouble.

Trouble is the movie doesn't present them as rebels without a cause. They're not angry at the world or disenfranchised. They're baseball fans. The mood created by the music seems to suggest these are just boys being boys, that this behavior is typical in coming-of-age Taiwan, when the truth is that they're just a bunch of losers.

The "leader" is a smug, arrogant letch and a liar who doesn't take responsibility for anything. He lies outright to his girlfriend's face. His best friend seems loyal, but it turns out he's just spineless. Another turns out to have no honor and is willing to let a buddy take the fall for his shortcoming. What's to like? I'm supposed to sympathize?

Upon the second viewing of the film, since I usually view DVD rentals twice, I started seeing some more of what the director may have been getting at – the social commentary of society's moral decay.

These losers' heroes are baseball players, but the movie, set in 1997 in the city of Hsinchu, Taiwan, focuses on a gambling scandal that was plaguing Taiwanese professional baseball. Their heroes are crooks, involved in gambling and bribery scams.

The petty mischief of the boys may be a reflection of the criminal behavior of their heroes, but then it leads them into the twisted mindset of not knowing or appreciating the consequences when real crimes in the real world are involved.

It's also about character. When your band of brothers are a bunch of delinquent losers, don't be surprised when they turn against you. Consequences and redemption. Who are the real friends? Ripping up baseball cards may be a realization of the wrong path to follow.

So, far from being a misguided coming-of-age movie sympathizing with losers, I think the director was going for something deeper, and that makes me look on the film more favorably. The problem with the film is that it misleads the viewer into thinking we're supposed to be sympathizing with these boys.

It needed a heavier counterweight than what is given in the female characters to convey that there's something wrong with these guys, that they are (symbolically) being led down the wrong path by their heroes.

Heroes, those in the public eye, need to take responsibility for their actions and appreciate how their behavior affects society. Fine. But the movie needed a pull in the other direction to show that this is a fight for Taiwan society's soul and future.

I give this movie a respectable 7 out of 10 tomatoes.