A Foggy Tale follows a naive young Taiwanese girl who travels to Taipei on her own to retrieve the body of her beloved older brother. The film is set in 1953, a period of time known as White Terror under the rule of the Kuomintang government.

A Foggy Tale is a long film with several subplots relating to the dangers and suppression of the population with terror tactics.

Yue (Caitlin Fang) opens the story sneaking food to her older brother Yun (Tseng Jin-hua) who is hiding from the government in a cane field. Yun tells her about a story he wrote about two drops of water. They play with his watch and imagine their lives years into the future. Then government agents find them and take Yun.

Shortly after that Yue and her family get word that Yun was shot by a firing squad. To return his body home, it must be retrieved from a funeral home in Taipei at great expense.

The family has no money, but Yue sets off on her own anyway. She’s young and too trusting and gets into all sorts of trouble. There are thieves and sex traffickers and other unsavory types all over the place.

Kung-Tao (Will Or), a rickshaw driver and former Army man, feels sorry for her and becomes her protector and helper. He’s relatively honest and almost trustworthy. He helps her find (and lose) money. He takes her to the funeral home, which is closed for the day.

Yue has the address of her older sister Hsia (9m88). She’s never met Hsia, but Hsia knew their brother and agrees to help get him delivered back home for burial.

Kung-Tao has his own plot line involving his former life in the army and what the government is trying to do to him.

Almost magically Yue gets plenty of money. Yue, Kung-Tao, and Hsia go to the funeral home for the body. He isn’t there, but they have enough money to bribe his location out of someone there.

As Yue and Hsia wait for their brother’s remains, Hsia tells Yue a different version of their brother’s story about the two drops of water. Hsia’s more modern version of the story is a beautiful metaphor for the political situation around them. It involves a heavy fog.

There’s no moralizing in the film about the political situation. It’s just fact that the government can snatch you up and execute you with no explanation. People in power like police officers are deliberately cruel. Taipei was crowded and chaotic. People lived and worked in thrown-together shelters unless they were rich.

Just when you think the story is finished, there’s a coda involving old Yue (Pan Li-li), her children and grandchildren in the 1990s. It was a sentimental finish to a story that basically was all told when Yue and her sister managed to secure their bother’s remains. I personally appreciated the coda because it serves as a reminder to us that authoritarian regimes do not last. They always fail.

Caitlin Fang, the young actor playing Yue, was excellent in this. She hit every emotional note. She demonstrated Yue’s determination and courage in the face of many obstacles.

I thought the film was too long and included unnecessary subplots. I don’t give it the highest rating, but it is worthwhile to watch. Here’s the trailer if you’d like to get a glimpse at it. You’ll find it streaming on Netflix.