# Daughter of the Nile (尼罗河女儿)
**Daughter of the Nile** (尼羅河女兒) is a 1987 Taiwanese drama directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, following a Taipei teenager who escapes into a Japanese shōjo manga (Japanese comics made for teenage girls) of the same name while her family falls apart around her. It was produced by the commercial company Xuefu (學甫有限公司), runs 93 minutes, and is performed in Mandarin and Taiwanese.[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) The film takes its title and framing device from the manga *Daughter of the Nile* by Chieko Hosokawa, which was popular among Taipei teenagers at the time.[2](https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5038792)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / year | Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1987[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) |
| Production | Xuefu Ltd, Taiwan; 35 mm color; Mandarin and Taiwanese[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) |
| Screenplay / photography | Chu Tien-wen (screenplay), Chen Huai-en (cinematography), Liao Ching-sung (editing)[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) |
| Lead cast | Yang Lin (Lin Hsiao-yang), Jack Kao (Hsiao-fang), Yang Fan (Ah-san), Li Tien-lu (the grandfather)[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) |
| Awards | Best Original Score (Chang Hung-yi), 24th Golden Horse Awards, 1987[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) |
| Festival history | Directors' Fortnight, 1987 Cannes; Special Jury Prize, 1987 Turin; Berlinale Classics world premiere of the 4K restoration, 2016[1](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7) |
| Restoration | 4K digital restoration completed in 2015 by the National Film Center with Japan's IMAGICA[3](https://edumovie-tfai.org.tw/article/content/262) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story centers on Lin Hsiao-yang (楊林), a vocational high school student living on the edge of Taipei. Her mother and eldest brother have died, her father works as a police officer in the south, and she shares the family's low house with her elementary-school sister Hsiao-wei, a grandfather absorbed in the numbers game *dajiale*, and her second brother Hsiao-fang, who slips out at night claiming to go to work while actually stealing.[4](https://edumovie-tfai.org.tw/article/content/262) Hsiao-yang works at a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet by day and attends cram school at night.[5](https://kfa.kcg.gov.tw/files/20230607150657767.pdf)
Hsiao-yang is fond of the manga *Daughter of the Nile* and imagines Ah-san, a friend of her brother's, as the story's hero Memphis. Ah-san, however, falls in love with Ming-ming, the mistress of a gangster, who has him followed. Ah-san is shot in the right thigh, then takes revenge by shooting at his pursuers, and the police seal the restaurant he and Hsiao-fang have opened. He borrows money to flee south with Ming-ming but is shot dead at Tamsui before leaving.[4](https://edumovie-tfai.org.tw/article/content/262)
The ending follows the same pattern of loss. Hsiao-fang has Hsiao-yang withdraw all the money in her account to repay gambling debts, then disappears. She hears a radio report of a burglar beaten to death by a householder, rushes at dawn to the newspaper office to check the morning edition, and finally goes with her father to identify the body.[6](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7)
## Production
Hou made the film at a turning point in his career. He departed from his usual cooperation with the state-funded Central Pictures Corporation and signed with Xue Fu, one of Taiwan's major commercial studios at the time, as the New Wave cinema suddenly ran its course.[7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2024.2376965) The production company Tsung Yi Film Co, which had produced Hou's first feature in 1980, financed the film on the stipulation that it be commercial and star the popular young singer Yang Lin.[8](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/19378/daughter-of-the-nile)
The screenplay drew in part on incidents in the life of writer [Chu Tien-wen](https://www.edgepedia.org/chu-tien-wen) (朱天文), Hou's longtime collaborator.[9](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2017/films/daughter-of-the-nile/) A literary version of the story appeared later, in 1989, and was collected in 1990 in Chu's story collection *Millennium's Gorgeous* (世紀末的華麗).[10](https://www.thenewslens.com/feature/film/39051) • [11](https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28803/1/10672971.pdf)
Hou himself later spoke harshly of the film. In an interview he said, "I shot a bunch of these before, but things are now different from the past; I can't do it [anymore]. [Daughter] is incongruous with my previous and later films, as if it was a film that I grabbed from a long time ago."[7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2024.2376965) Film Comment records that he viewed the finished film as a flimsy vehicle for the pop star Yang Lin.[12](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/review-daughter-of-the-nile-hou-hsiao-hsien/)
## Themes and style
The film marked a deliberate break from Hou's earlier work. Responding to criticism that he "only filmed childhood and memories," Hou turned to the reality of contemporary Taipei, using the manga popular there for eight years as a wedge to explore youth culture and, through it, to criticize the city's urban culture as a whole.[2](https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5038792) The critic Peggy Chiao (焦雄屏), writing in *CommonWealth Magazine* in September 1987, described the film as a mirror showing cultural maladjustment under Taiwan's "East Asian Four Little Dragons" economic boom: fast-food culture, host bars, discotheques, cram schools, mahjong and *dajiale* gambling, family estrangement, and even political informing and speech controls in education.[2](https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5038792)
The city itself carries the film's meaning. The critic noted that dusk and night scenes run through the whole film, casting Taipei in a low, gloomy atmosphere, and that the heroine retreats into manga fantasy while the men around her turn to theft or get-rich dreams.[2](https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5038792) [Sight and Sound](https://www.edgepedia.org/sight-and-sound) describes the film as one of Hou's first Taipei-set films, in which the heroine's red Walkman, a gift stolen by her brother, embodies the rapid urbanization of late-1980s Taipei.[13](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/cine-wanderer-daughter-nile) The film closes with a dissolve from Taipei's skyline into a scroll of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, as Hsiao-yang's voiceover speaks of the Fall of Babylon.[13](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/cine-wanderer-daughter-nile)
The film sits between Hou's two better-known trilogies: the first, on personal memory (including *Dust in the Wind*, 1986), and the second, on Taiwan's history (*A City of Sadness*, 1989, onward).[14](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/daughter-of-the-nile/) It covers ground similar to Edward Yang's *[Taipei Story](https://www.edgepedia.org/taipei-story)* (1985), in which Hou himself acted: both deal with the confusion [Westernization](https://www.edgepedia.org/westernization) wrought on Taipei, though Yang's characters are middle class while Hou's are working people responding with hedonism and consumerism.[15](https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/2117145/flashback-daughter-nile-1987-hou-hsiao-hsiens)
## Reception and restoration
The film was overlooked for decades. The [South China Morning Post](https://www.edgepedia.org/south-china-morning-post) notes that it only began to reappear at festivals once the digitally restored version circulated, and Hou had already returned to the modern-day city with *[Good Men, Good Women](https://www.edgepedia.org/good-men-good-women)* in 1995, before revisiting it in *Millennium Mambo* in 2001.[15](https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/2117145/flashback-daughter-nile-1987-hou-hsiao-hsiens) • [17](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3811-good-men-good-women.html) At release, critics such as Chiao (1987) and Wu (1988) read it as a continuation of Hou's pessimistic critique of Taipei's materialism and consumerism.[7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2024.2376965)
In 2015 the National Film Center (now the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute) worked with Japan's IMAGICA on a 4K restoration, with the film's cinematographer Chen Huai-en helping verify the condition of the original print and adjust the color. The restored version premiered in the Berlinale Classics section at the 2016 [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival).[3](https://edumovie-tfai.org.tw/article/content/262) The restoration aimed to reproduce the film-stock look of the 1980s neon-lit magic-hour scenes rather than the sharper brightness of digital-era grading.[16](https://app2.atmovies.com.tw/film/fScmb5050855/) A Cohen Media Group Blu-ray drawn from the 4K restoration followed in 2018.[14](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/daughter-of-the-nile/)
## References
1. [尼羅河女兒 Daughter of The Nile, Taiwan Film Digital Restoration Project](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7)
2. [焦雄屏：尼羅河女兒變成台北人之後, 天下雜誌76期 (1987)](https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5038792)
3. [《尼羅河女兒》Daughter of the Nile, 認識電影 (國家電影及視聽文化中心)](https://edumovie-tfai.org.tw/article/content/262)
4. [Daughter of The Nile 劇情大綱, 臺灣電影數位修復計劃](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7)
5. [Special Screening of Classic Restoration, 高雄市電影館](https://kfa.kcg.gov.tw/files/20230607150657767.pdf)
6. [Daughter of The Nile synopsis, Taiwan Film Digital Restoration Project](https://tcdrp.tfi.org.tw/achieve.asp?M_ID=19&Y_No=7)
7. [Hou Hsiao-Hsien's acousmatic sound in Daughter of the Nile, Journal of Chinese Cinemas](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17508061.2024.2376965)
8. [Daughter of the Nile, MIFF Film Archive](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/19378/daughter-of-the-nile)
9. [Daughter of the Nile, 55th New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2017/films/daughter-of-the-nile/)
10. [黑道情懷下的新女性：從朱天文到聶隱娘, The News Lens 關鍵評論網](https://www.thenewslens.com/feature/film/39051)
11. [Chu T'ien-wen, SOAS eprints](https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28803/1/10672971.pdf)
12. [Review: Daughter of the Nile, Film Comment (2017)](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/review-daughter-of-the-nile-hou-hsiao-hsien/)
13. [Cine wanderer: Daughter of the Nile, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/cine-wanderer-daughter-nile)
14. [Review: Daughter of the Nile on Cohen Media Group Blu-ray, Slant Magazine (2018)](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/daughter-of-the-nile/)
15. [Flashback: Daughter of the Nile (1987), South China Morning Post (2017)](https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/2117145/flashback-daughter-nile-1987-hou-hsiao-hsiens)
16. [尼羅河女兒, 開眼電影網 @movies](https://app2.atmovies.com.tw/film/fScmb5050855/)
17. [Good Men, Good Women - Festival des Cinémas d'Asie de Vesoul](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3811-good-men-good-women.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Coming-of-age films › Coming-of-age films released before 2000*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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