Before even mentioning the well-crafted, tear-jerking story and the whimsical, colorful animations, the most impressive part of On Happiness Road (幸福路上) is how it manages to condense four decades of Taiwanese politics, economics, traditional and pop culture as well as everyday life into 109 minutes without mucking up the narrative.

Of course, the viewer probably needs to have grown up in Taiwan or have a decent understanding of its turbulent recent history to catch all the minute details, but even so, it’s a pretty solid drama following the past and present of a Chi (Gwei Lun-mei, 桂綸鎂), a Taiwanese woman in her 30s who returns home to Happiness Road from the US following the death of her grandmother. There’s so much to explore here… MORE.