A people ‘Betrayed’

Thanks to a float paying tribute to the Beijing Olympics creating the most controversy the Rose Parade has seen in more than a decade, China is certainly a hot topic in Pasadena these days. But according to Los Feliz-based filmmaker and actor Will Tiao, the mainland communist behemoth isn't the only part of China that's got dark secrets, including human rights violations.

Tiao is writing and producing an ambitious historical thriller with the working title "Formosa Betrayed," about the mysterious murder of an Asian professor who was killed in a Midwestern town in the early 1980s. A detective who pursued the case found that the Taiwanese government was paying some students to spy on the professor and wound up uncovering an internecine trail of treachery indicating that the Chinese mafia had ordered the professor's murder on behalf of Taiwanese government officials.

"If you're a member of the Taiwanese community and haven't heard about it, you're living in a cave, because it's been covered many times in the Taiwanese US press. They held a press conference for me in Taiwan when I last went there, and five TV cameras and three newspapers were there," says Tiao. "But I haven't done anything to be a star. The press coverage in the Chinese-language community is very competitive, and this is the most controversial topic in the Chinese and Taiwanese communities -- whether Taiwan is independent, or part of China. That's the essential question the movie deals with."

Tiao's ultimate goal is to raise $10 to $12 million to make his film, and it appears he's well on his way to success. So far, he has been guaranteed more than $5 million, a benchmark figure that has enabled him to start approaching name actors for roles in the film.

"More co-financing will come after stars are attached, but we're definitely headed for the $10 to $12 million budget range, which is the same range as 'Crash' and 'Capote,'" explains Tiao. "Our ideal [role models] are political thrillers like 'Hotel Rwanda,' 'Last King of Scotland,' 'Munich' and 'Syriana.' 'Munich' in particular is a favorite of ours, a period piece about a real event that's been fictionalized."

The son of dissident immigrants from Taiwan, Tiao easily reels off the complex history of Taiwan, an island sometimes known as Formosa, and its ties with the US government as a strategic thorn in the side of the communist mainland. Taiwan was controlled by Japan for a half-century, until that nation lost World War II, sending the island nation into political flux.

Chiang Kai-shek was the head of the Nationalist Party on the mainland, and while facing a civil war against a communist foe, he hoped to reclaim Taiwan and use it as a strategic base. At first, the island's population was happy to reunite with the mainland, but they soon learned that the Nationalist troops were corrupt and raping and pillaging the Taiwanese population.

When the Taiwanese citizens rebelled, Chiang sent troops in for an event now known as the 2/28 Massacre, in which Nationalist troops invaded on Feb. 28, 1947, and eventually killed nearly 30,000 Taiwanese. The attack backfired, however, by inspiring the Taiwanese people to fight ever harder for their independence from the mainland. When the communist rebels eventually conquered the mainland in 1949, Taiwan was left outside their reach. But the country remained in fear of another takeover.

According to Tiao, the Taiwanese also had plenty to fear from Chiang Kai-shek's son, who dispatched spies to America to follow residents who fled there in search of safety.

While many refugees eventually found their families were tortured or killed as retribution, Tiao's parents experienced a relatively better situation. They were part of the democracy and independence movement in Taiwan, and he recalls that his father was spied upon as a professor and was blacklisted by the government of Taiwan at the time.

"We were followed and harassed and knew some friends of his who were tortured and were eventually murdered -- here in America," Tiao recalls. "The Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan is that corrupt, and that's a story that no one knows. That party's not in power anymore but they exist and they might come back any time. Who knows?"

His father became a professor at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan. -- the town where Tiao was born and raised before winning a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and entering a career in foreign policy for more than a decade. Tiao's first job was with the nonprofit Formosa Association for Public Affairs. He then worked for former Kansas Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and eventually in the Clinton administration as an international economist at the Labor Department.

Tiao finally left government midway through President George W. Bush's first administration, in which he served as a US trade representative. In 2002, he felt it was time to take a stab at a film career, so he uprooted himself and moved to Los Angeles, undaunted by knowing there were few parts available for Asian actors.

His first film was a romantic-comedy short called "A Starbucks Story," in which a woman enters a Starbucks only to realize the man behind the counter is a former one-night stand of hers. The short proved popular enough to sell out three screenings at Hollywood's Chinese Theatre and win the Audience Award for best short film and best film of the fest at the Foundation for the Advancement of Independent Film festival before appearing in festivals worldwide.

"I did another feature-length indie film called 'Stan,' which I also produced and acted in. This is my third film, and on a much bigger scale, so I brought in some partners who have been in the business a while," says Tiao. "My partner David Cluck has been in the film biz 20 years, working on [more than] 30 films, including 'Monster' with Charlize Theron, and he just finished a film with Michael Keaton. His specialty is art films with the budget range we're looking at.

"The story idea was my concept. I hired a writer to help me flesh it out with a treatment and script, and we are now on the fourth or fifth draft of the script."

For his part, Cluck was drawn to Tiao's "boundless energy and enthusiasm" for the project, which were factors that overcame his limited knowledge about Taiwan and its struggle for independence.

"As he told me about his angle, I liked the notion of a political thriller like 'Three Days of the Condor,' 'Marathon Man' and 'The Formula.' This will have its share of action, but it's more a story that will make people want to go out, learn more and make up their own minds," says Cluck. "If we could get a story that appeals to someone like me it could serve many purposes. There's no point in making a story just for the Taiwanese people because they know it. The goal is to reach out to the Taiwanese audience in a perspective Americans get -- that's why the American detective is the hero and it's seen through his eyes."

With his production company, Formosa Films, up and running, Tiao is looking forward to the adventure of creating his biggest film yet, and proud that its source is so close to his political passions.

"I knew this would not be a story that might find funding easily; [it could even take] years. I've worked in campaigns and fundraising before, so I went back to my first job of relating to the Asian community," he says. "At the first meeting I spoke to, I raised 20 percent of my funds, and since then I've traveled to [more than] 40 cities in the United States, Canada and Taiwan. I've spoken to 10,000 people about this project, and I hope someday to reach millions more."