Formosa Betrayed (2009) on Netflix
In 1980s Chicago, FBI agent Jake Kelly investigates the murder of a Taiwanese professor. The killers have fled to Taipei, and Kelly is sent overseas to help find them.
- Netflix2.4/5
- IMDb6.1/101,554 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes34%
Trailer
Plot summary
Set in the 1980s, the story follows FBI agent Jake Kelly as he investigates the murder of Henry Wen, a Taiwanese professor killed in Chicago. Kelly's partner Tom Braxton and a Chicago police detective, Lisa Gilbert, establish that the killers fled to Taipei. Kelly is sent to Taiwan to assist the government's search for them. An American diplomat, Susan Kane, and a Kuomintang official, Kuo, guide him, and he meets Ming, a Taiwanese activist. The story was inspired by two actual events, the 1981 death of Professor Chen Wen-chen of Carnegie Mellon University and the 1984 assassination of the journalist Henry Liu in California.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Formosa Betrayed (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Formosa Betrayed was inspired by two real cases: the 1981 death of Carnegie Mellon professor Chen Wen-chen, and the 1984 California assassination of journalist Henry Liu by Chen Chi-li and his fellow Bamboo Union members.
- Although the film is set in Taiwan, the production shot in Thailand, in the face of criticism from Taiwanese communities in America, because Thailand's equipment, crews and sets were cheaper than Taiwan's, where gear would have had to be shipped from Japan; present-day Taiwan also no longer looks like the Taiwan of the 1980s, which avoided set-design costs.
