In 1966, director Richard Chen had just returned to Taiwan from the United States. Before filming his master’s thesis Liu Pi-Chia, Chen came to know Huang Yung-Sung, Mou Tun-Fei, and Huang Kuei-Jung, three close friends who were students at the National Taiwan Academy of Arts and shared a love for art, film, and mountain climbing. Chen brought a 16mm camera with him as he followed the three on a trip to Wuzhi Mountain in Hsinchu, capturing their youth, friendship, and the scenery along the way in black-and-white images. The three spoke about their artistic ambitions, the fact that only party members could receive scholarships, and their views on the Vietnam War.
The entire film is set to the song California Dreamin’, which not only expresses the frustrations of the time but also amplifies the youthful energy of the three. The dialogue between music and image stirs multiple layers of meaning, making the film more than a record of a countryside outing—it becomes a spiritual journey. It preserves the traces of their youth and marks the beginning of the trio’s shared dream of filmmaking. The film reel was stored in a UCLA professor’s garage for decades and was digitally restored fifty years later by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute.