The film did the rounds of the European film festival circuit, screening at the 2006 International Film Festival Rotterdam, [5] the 2006 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, [6] and the 33rd Brussels International Independent Film Festival where it won the festival's Grand Prize. [7] In 2016, ten years after its release, the film screened as part of the Kaohsiung Film Festival. [8]

Director Zheng Wentang: I want to keep the rookie spirit". Business Today (in Chinese). 19 November 2015 . Retrieved 2 June 2021. In 2003, I saw Cheng Wen-tang's debut feature, the magisterial Somewhere over the Dreamland, at the Asian Film Festival in San Francisco's 4 Star Theatre. Floored by the film's poetic treatment of lost love, I knew I had just viewed one of the best Taiwanese films in recent years.

It's a great pleasure when watching a film you're enjoying and knew nothing about to recognize that beyond being a good film you are also experiencing the work of a skilled director. The upside to this is that there's a good chance you'll have at least a few more good films in your future. Such is the case with Blue Cha Cha.

Cheng shows his sincerity about the characters' desires by very sneakily hiding from us that An-an is mentally stunned. By only revealing the concrete and visual (rather than the diagnostic or medical) details of her life -- pills, slow movements, facial expressions -- the audience learns to sympathize with An-an as a person rather than a patient, and her depiction comes off as anything but exploitative or stereotyped. More important than the root of her condition (which is the Freudian obsession of most mainstream films) are the ways An-an very gradually learns to cope with employment and romance after her release from jail. Ah Yu too is depicted as less a saint-like guardian than a loud, stubborn lady with an inclination for liquor and dance. The dulcet tones of Rosa Passos almost seem like a whispered declaration of love. “I felt very happy and honored when I was invited to participate on the beautiful song ‘Alma Mía’ on Manuel Galbán’s final album,” Passos says. Blue Cha Cha requires patience, and yes, that's code for it being an art house type film that moves slowly and doesn't offer a lot of detail as to why things are happening. Beyond a somewhat ambiguous statement near the end of the film revealing why Ah Yu was in prison we never learn anything about her past, and throughout the film it is clear that she has no idea nor concrete desires for her future. She just drifts along, medicated, mentally unstable yet always trying to be nice, hoping each day will offer some measure of fulfillment. Blue Cha Cha isn't a low-budget indie film, though. It has excellent production values and looks very good. The direction is fluid and creative and the cinematography is great.Blue Cha Cha depicts Ah Yu ( Tarcy Su), a woman in her thirties who has just been released from prison. She stays with an older women, An An ( Lu Yi-ching), the proprietor of a girlie bar in the port town of Kaohsiung, and attempts to form relationships with two men: businessman Chen Sang ( Leon Dai) and factory worker Hao (Wei Lee). [3] [4] Wu, Nelson H. (24 November 2006). "Asia-Pacific fest falls for 'Unwanted Woman' ". Variety . Retrieved 2 June 2021. The film observes as An-an wades through two traumatic relationships, one with a rich and probably corrupt patron of Ah Yu's bar, and the other with a young manager at the electronics factory she ends up working at. If the film seems at all directionless during these sequences, it's to reflect An-an's own uncertainties about her future. Through the deliberate pacing, the film refuses to surpass An-an's own sense of speed; to drive the plot any faster would be to betray her gradual emotional re-awakening. Foreign language Oscar nominees announced". The New Zealand Herald. 2007-01-17 . Retrieved 2008-06-22.