Your Name Engraved Herein
君の心に刻んだ名前
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Two boys at a Catholic school in the last year of martial law; Taiwan's highest-grossing LGBTQ film.
Taiwan, 1987. Martial law has just been lifted. At an all-boys Catholic high school, Chang Jia-han, called A-han, plays in the band led by the school's priest, Father Oliver. A new boy, Wang Po-te, called Birdy, meets him at swimming practice. Birdy has a nerve A-han lacks: when A-han's friends beat up a boy they call gay, Birdy takes the boy's side and walks away with him. The two become inseparable.
When President Chiang Ching-kuo dies early in 1988, the school sends them to Taipei to mourn. They watch police drag away Chi Chia-wei, a gay rights protester, and Birdy asks A-han to come to film school with him. In a video parlour, A-han almost kisses him while he sleeps.
The next term the school admits girls. Birdy, whispered about as gay, grows close to one of them, Wu Ruo-fei, called Ban-ban, and asks A-han to stop seeking him out alone. A-han's coded confession by pager goes unanswered; he helps Birdy steal a giant balloon and learns it is for Birdy's declaration to Ban-ban. Jealous, he secretly reports the pair to the school. After a scooter accident the boys share a moment of closeness and Birdy kisses A-han, then avoids him. Ban-ban is expelled. When Birdy's father comes to the school to beat him, A-han steps in and the boys end up fighting each other. After a furious quarrel at A-han's home he runs away to the Penghu islands; Birdy follows, they kiss on the beach, and they part. A-han calls him one last time and plays him a song down the line, and both weep.
Decades later a middle-aged A-han goes to a band reunion hoping to see Birdy and finds Ban-ban instead: she married Birdy, had his children, divorced him, and wishes he had told her the truth. At Father Oliver's grave in Quebec City, the priest's former lover tells A-han that Oliver was gay and buried it in the Church. Then A-han runs into Birdy outside a bar. Birdy admits he truly loved him and could not accept it then. He declines a drink upstairs, and they walk together towards his hotel while their younger selves sing the song.
Starring
Edward Chenas Chang Jia-han (A-han)
A student and band member at a Catholic boys' school who falls in love with the new boy and cannot say so.
Chang Jia-han (A-han)’s story
A-han plays in the band at a strict Catholic boys' school. When his friends beat a boy they call gay, it is the new boy, Birdy, who takes the boy's side, and the two become inseparable; on a trip to Taipei to mourn the president, A-han almost kisses Birdy as he sleeps. When the school admits girls and Birdy falls for Ban-ban, A-han's coded confession by pager goes unanswered. Jealous, he secretly reports the couple, and Ban-ban is expelled. After a furious quarrel at home he runs away to Penghu; Birdy follows, they kiss on the beach and part. Decades later A-han goes to a band reunion hoping to see Birdy, visits Father Oliver's grave in Quebec, then runs into Birdy outside a bar, hears that Birdy truly loved him, and walks with him to his hotel.
Tseng Jing-huaas Wang Po-te (Birdy)
A transfer student with a strong sense of justice who dreams of making films and cannot accept what he feels for A-han.
Wang Po-te (Birdy)’s story
Birdy arrives at the Catholic boys' school and at once takes the side of a boy being beaten as gay. In Taipei he rages at police dragging away a gay rights protester and asks A-han to go to film school with him. When the school admits girls and he is whispered about as gay, he grows close to Ban-ban, confesses to her with a stolen balloon, and asks A-han to stop seeking him out alone. He kisses A-han, then avoids him; his father comes to the school to beat him, and he and A-han come to blows. He follows A-han to Penghu, kisses him on the beach, and leaves to study. Decades later, married to Ban-ban and divorced, he tells A-han he truly loved him but could not accept it then, and they walk to his hotel.
Leon Daias Chang Jia-han, middle-aged
A-han decades on, still looking for Birdy at a band reunion and at a priest's grave in Quebec.
Mimi Shaoas Wu Ruo-fei (Ban-ban)
One of the first girls at the newly mixed school, who stands up to a teacher with Birdy and becomes his girlfriend.
Fabio Grangeonas Father Oliver
The priest who leads the school band and tells the boys to live in the moment, while hiding a secret of his own.
Why it matters
Your Name Engraved Herein sets a first love inside a precise moment in history: the months after martial law ended in Taiwan, when a gay rights protester could still be dragged off the street and a strict Catholic school could call desire between boys a sickness. The film does not pretend its boys were free. Birdy chooses a wife and a life that looks acceptable and pays for it, as, it turns out, did the priest who told them to live in the moment. Its sadness is the sadness of timing, of two people who arrived at the right feeling in the wrong decade. It became the highest-grossing LGBTQ film in Taiwan's history and the first gay-themed film there to pass NT$100 million at the box office, and won Golden Horse Awards for its cinematography and its song. It does not reunite the lovers; it lets two middle-aged men say, too late, what two boys could not.