Wild Sparrow (2019) on Netflix

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Wild Sparrow (2019)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

• Director Shih Li spent three months casting the lead, and Lee Yi-chieh was not his first choice but the last person he interviewed. Seeing how bedraggled she looked sheltering from the rain on the day they met convinced him she should play A-li.
• The theme song, "Love Is Lonelier Than Death", has lyrics by Shih Li, music by Chen Hsiao-hsia and vocals by Eve Ai, the first time Ai had sung a film theme song. It had been finished more than a decade earlier but was shelved for lack of a suitable singer.
• The film was shot in 18 days with only one scene reshot, and its mountain scenes were filmed around Gongliao and Pingxi. The budget was about NT$6 million, which the article calls far from generous for a Taiwanese film.
• Before filming, Lee Yi-chieh had gone a year without acting work and doubted she was suited to it, so she took the role with nothing to lose. To research the hotel trade she worked inside one as a boss's assistant, getting home around 4 a.m. and writing down her notes.
• In a confrontational scene with Hsia Teng-hung, who plays A-li's boyfriend Lien, Lee Yi-chieh kept provoking him so both would stay in character. The two injured each other, and her dental bite was affected as a result.
• Cinematographer Chen Chi-wen chose a 4:3 screen ratio so viewers' eyes would not have to move left and right, keeping the visual focus in the centre and creating a gazing effect that holds the camera closer to the characters' feelings.
• To play the miner's wife Han-hsiao-yi, Chen Shu-fang removed her false teeth and stayed hunched throughout the shoot, recalling the elderly she had seen picking scraps near mines as stooped and mostly missing teeth.
• Lee Yi-chieh won Best Actress at the 2019 Taipei Film Awards for the film, and her job offers increased noticeably after the win.