Ding-ya An

Asheng, once a gang member of the Zhongshan District, was sent to jail for 12 years after saving his friend Shaou. He is released and returns to Linsen North Road, his old turf, finding it familiar yet perplexing after being away for so many years. Shaou is now a mob boss with his own turf. When the son of Seagull’s patron, Mr. Xiao, is murdered, the evidence points to up-and-coming mobster Monkey. Shauo tries to ambush Monkey and fails, getting shot by the drugged up gangster instead. Asheng, who initially refused to help Shaou, is now filled with rage and decides to avenge his friend.

The year is 1943 and Taiwan is under Japanese colonization. After finishing his studies in Japan, famous Taiwanese sculptor and painter Ching-Cheng Huang receives an offer to teach in Beiping Art School. He decides to visit friends and family back home before leaving for China. He boards the passenger liner "Takachiho Maru" in Kobe, Japan, with his girlfriend, a pianist. Tragically, the luxurious liner is torpedoed by an American submarine and sinks off the coast of Keelung, Taiwan. Decades later, Shou-shou, a fine art restorer with a crippling illness, finds one of Huang's paintings in an exhibition. As she restores the painting, Shou-shou learns about the artist, the stories behind his work and his death at sea. She recreates the story of the painting "Woman in Black", and romantically imagines the ways the artist painted his girlfriend. The more she studies, the more she was inspired by Huang's value of art and of life. Restoring Huang's painting thus becomes Shou-shou's way of ...

苦力