A Foggy Tale - Netflix Movie

A Foggy Tale - official trailer
Mandarin Vision

Apparently we didn't get our quota of repression from binge watching Tehran so now we're in Taiwan watching another repressive regime in action. The story starts slowly but after laying out the ground work it picks up speed and becomes engrossing. The epilog makes it look like it is a true story, but I found nothing on the net to confirm this.

Netflix summary:

After losing her brother to a government execution, a young girl takes a dangerous journey to reclaim his body and raise the money for a proper burial.

Midgard Times review:

A Foggy Tale is set during the period of White Terror—a nearly four-decade era of martial law, political repression, and authoritarian rule by the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) under Chiang Kai-shek—and, for most of its runtime, Chen Yu-hsun films those oppressive years as though they were distant memories recalled decades later. The result is a mostly detached and unsentimental tale told with the observational restraint of a documentary. Through the eyes of a young Taiwanese girl named Yue (Caitlin Fang), Yu-hsun captures the ordinary lives of citizens living during the White Terror. By keeping a child at the center, Yu-hsun refuses to sugarcoat her proximity to physical harm and dangers posed by predatory men and the police officers. After arriving in Taipei from Chiayi, Yue is abducted by a child trafficker, and when she angrily accuses a cop of killing her brother, another officer kicks her and violently beats her. Yet when Yue blames the police for her brother's death, she isn't accusing a single individual so much as the entire repressive system.

A Foggy Tale opens with Yue and her brother, Yun (Tseng Jing-hua), discussing what they hope to become in the future. From there, Yu-hsun cuts to one year later and takes us to the moment when the news of Yun's execution by firing squad arrives at Yue's residence. The implication is clear: under oppressive rule, dreams, ambitions, and futures are abruptly cut short by a regressive, close-minded system. There are other sentimental touches, like Yue finding a brother-from-another-mother in Chao Kung-tao (Will Or) and reuniting with her elder sister, Hsu (9m88), who was given up for adoption years earlier. Yet Yu-hsun never exploits these moments for melodramatic effect. He remains curiously level-headed throughout. Scenes that might have turned cloying or excessively brutal in the hands of a lesser filmmaker are presented in a matter-of-fact manner.

When Yue is taken to a room at Paradise Funeral Home to identify her brother's body, what stands out in the foreground is the employee's casual lack of empathy in the face of her discomfort. Even then, Yu-hsun shows little interest in launching direct attacks against any particular person. Cruelty is not sensationalized, and acts of kindness arrive without sentimental fanfare. Such a style of filmmaking often results in impersonal work, yet there is something about A Foggy Tale that prevents you from dismissing Yu-hsun's efforts. He casually introduces elements like a Robin Hood-style figure or Kung-tao making a deal to murder someone in ways that initially leave you taken aback. Is Yu-hsun assembling different varieties of vignettes to depict a particular moment in history? Does the key to the puzzle lie in the titular tale that Hsu tells her sister?

Wikipedia page about the White Terror.

Train from Chiayi to Taipei