BTS: BETTER THAN SEX (Taiwan, 2002)
Directed by: Su Chao-pin
Starring: Michael Wong, Ginny Liu, Leon Dai, MC Hotdog

“It talks about what’s better than sex. There’s no such thing in the world!” - director Su Chao-pin

A boy with a giant member wows his school counselor by making balloon animals with his junk.  A cursed katana causes three punks to spontaneously ejaculate.  A reformed yakuza weeps over a moldy bento box.  That’s just the first few minutes of Su Chao-pin’s gem, BTS: BETTER THAN SEX and while it’s as far removed from his current hit Reign of Assassins as you can possibly get, all young and manic and obsessed with sex, as opposed to Reign’s elegant wu xia action. Su helmed BTS after more squeamish directors refused to touch his randy script; drawing on his love of manga, he utilized a comic geek’s eye, to inject an irreverent visual sensibility and manic cutaways that still feel raw and fresh today. The film went on to become one of Taiwan’s rare local hits, but it’s barely ever played overseas.

Taipei circa 2002 is a city constantly in flux.  Lin (pop idol, Michael Wong) is a teenaged naif with a mammoth tool who’s searching for his purpose in life, having been assured by late mentor Boss Cheng that there is more out there than masturbation. Feral Tam (Ginny Liu), the classmate who nursed a monster crush on him for years, has gone full-on Sid & Nancy to get over him. Ken, the ex-yakuza, has come with a Japanese TV crew to wage war on “out of control teens” in a search for reality show ratings, but he’s also nursing a broken heart that can only be healed by eating his wife’s last rotting lunch she prepared for him.  How will these lost souls come together to form a sexy cosmic whole?  Who is the woman of Lin’s dreams?  Who will win the cursed Inu-Maru blade?  And is Ken really going to eat that bento box? (Answer: yes.)

As manic as a monkey on speed, BTS just won’t quit. But it’s also here to offer you some simple life lessons. One: don’t play with swords, you’ll only cut your hands off.  Two: frequent masturbation will lead you to your destiny.  Three:  love can stop time and defeat the crushing forces of conformity.  And four: life is like tofu jello - you’ve gotta eat it while it’s hot.