The Red Leaf Legend

In 1968, the Taiwanese Red Leaf Junior Baseball Team scored a historic victory over Japan. The small baseball players all came from the same village, Red Leaf, where the popular sport was successfully used to entice pupils who were playing truant back to elementary school. Ninety percent of the villagers belong to the aboriginal Bunun tribe, and this statistic also applies to the baseball team. Their victory over the great Japanese Wakusan team laid the foundation of the true arrival of baseball in Taiwan and went some way to restoring national confidence in an uncertain period.Thirty years later, director Hsiao Chu-Chen tries to find out what has become of the one-time successful baseball players. The rumours about them are not very favourable; people say that most players, even before they had reached forty, had perished from drink. Hsiao talks with five players who are still alive and with relatives of the other team members about the sad present and glorious past of the legendary Red Leaf Team. In addition, in Red Leaf she films the baseball achievements of the current pupils. In the meantime, their numbers have fallen to such an extent that boys and girls have to play in mixed teams. All in all, it is clear that Red Leaf never got beyond that one moment of glory, without bringing about a lasting improvement in the position of a community that has always been neglected.