In Taiwan pornography is still a socially unacceptable taboo. Firmly and ironically, Su Hui-yu indulges in a visually powerful long shot enhanced by unexpected pop art colours. A classic hardcore esthetic is represented in a gallery of a tableaux vivants that demand their freedom, alternating movement and immobility, the denial of pleasure and the pursuit of it.

This spectacularly eccentric satire by Su Hui-Yu draws on 1970s Taiwanese TV culture and has a roller-skating Hitler dance with Stalin and Mao do the same with Chiang Kai-shek. A revue show of dictators in cahoots with the entertainment industry.

In the early 1980s, hundreds of the so-called female revenging/exploitation films were produced in Taiwan. The 2020 version was based on the old genre to recreate a fantasy of the bloody revenge. The film is one of Su Hui-Yu’s “Re-shooting” series, which re-visits historical sources in Taiwan during the old days around the 1970s-1980s while the country was under martial law governance.

《超級禁忌》的敘事源自一本早年俗稱「小本」的黃色刊物，內容除了來自歐美、日本的盜版色情圖片，露骨的性愛描寫卻是如今讀來頗有韻味的白話文學體。由金士傑飾演的都會白領階級男性，在荒郊野外喃喃唸著書中情節，帶領我們逐步進入超現實的情慾場景。做為錄像裝置，《超級禁忌》一作企圖以重構／歪讀／幻想的策略帶領我們回到藝術家青少年時期的1980年代台灣。那時色情被推擠到視聽體制的邊緣，僅見容於深夜節目、午夜場、錄影帶出租店的小房間或書店裡最後一排書櫃。然而，被禁制的色情刊物永遠比敞開著的更性感，色情因為被視為下流、齷齪、敗德才換得吸引力。藝術家對此的興趣讓人想起巴岱耶（Georges Bataille）──對肉體快感興趣缺缺，只對被視為骯髒的東西有興趣。在《超級禁忌》裡，藝術家行走在這樣的稜線上，對禁忌的大眾文化產物進行一系列歪斜的閱讀，展示那個年代充滿曖昧的雙重性──高與低、主流與地下、端莊與清涼。純粹的快感彷彿是危險的，必須以先驗的愛來背書，或有社會情境為襯底，就像藝術家展示的色情古本中，粉紅色的口交影像佐以情感真摯的告白：「我們是同病相憐同在這個人慾橫流，勢利的社會生活，我們應該互相愛護才好呢！」

In artist Su Hui-yu’s signature style, a moody slow-motion pan captures a wild, glitter-scattered, blood-splattered orgy during the Tang dynasty. The film is an invocation of scenes from 1985 Taiwanese cult film Tang Chao Chi Li that only existed in the screenplay, unfilmed until now due to what can only be imagined as budgetary restrictions and censorship pressures during the Martial Law era. Presented without narrative context, the orgiastic murder scene plays out like an unsettling nightmare.