Taiwan's To Be Ordinary traces 11 years after a crash
Taiwanese writer-director Lee Yun Chan has returned to features with To Be Ordinary, her fourth film and her first since 2010's Dancing Without You, according to Variety. The family drama had its world premiere in Competition at the Busan International Film Festival, where it stood as the only Taiwanese production in the festival's main prizes section.
At the centre is 22-year-old college student Yu-jie, played by Junior Hsieh. He is hit while riding his moped and left unable to walk for the rest of his life. The crash takes seconds. The fallout lasts years.
The driver is wealthy elderly Mr Ma, played by Hsiu Shen Liang. The story follows the next 11 years and traces how the accident reshapes life for Yu-jie's entire family. Lee co-wrote the screenplay with Ginger Wang.
After Busan, the film was set to continue to the Tokyo Film Festival later in October and then open in cinemas in Taiwan in mid-November, Variety reported on Oct. 15, 2026. That gives it a quick move from festival launch to home release. Tokyo is a regular autumn stop for East Asian premieres seeking regional buyers and press.
Sales are handled by Mandarin Vision, a Taiwan-based sales company — a firm that sells distribution rights to buyers in different countries. The company acquired worldwide rights and planned to launch sales at the Asian Contents & Film Market in Busan, held Oct. 10-13, according to Deadline and ScreenDaily. The Busan market runs alongside the festival and is where completed films find cinema and streaming homes.
Lee is a Taiwanese director whose most recent directing credit before the film was the 2022 Disney+ series Women in Taipei. To Be Ordinary was included earlier in Taiwan's sales line-up at Cannes in May, where it was described as a story of long-term care and intergenerational responsibility, according to Variety. Busan's official listing describes it in similar terms, as a story in which a young man's life-changing injuries affect his immediate family.
For audiences coming to it fresh, the path is familiar for festival films. A world premiere in competition — the section competing for top jury awards — brings press attention, then a sales agent closes territory-by-territory deals while further festival dates build toward a domestic release.
Coverage has followed that arc. ScreenDaily published its review on Oct. 11, written by Allan Hunter, while Variety had earlier previewed the title as Lee's comeback in competition.
