Monga; 艋舺

Gangster themes are contemporary Hong Kong and 1920-1940 era Shanghai period drama perennials. Every few years a new one emerges. Monga, however, is a Taiwanese endeavor and it is quite brilliant and so watchable.
"Monga" is a Taiwanese aboriginal pronunciation.  It loosely means a place where small boats gather and used to be the name of an old town district in Taipei. Adjacent to 西门町, a tourism hot spot today. This cluster is where the 1970-1980ish early commercial development began.
For this type of movie you can almost imagine the mosaic of colorful characters and how they lived lives blurring the thin line between right and wrong. However, this movie is directed by Niu Chenze (钮承泽), the child actor-turned director whose acting we have seen in this blog: Growing Up. Allegedly he has himself lived a quasi-gangster life at one point in his youth. Seemingly volatile and jumpy (having even earned a well-deserved honorific Bean/Beanie), Niu is by all means a passionate director excels at using modern cinematic phrasing and maneuvering ensemble casts. In recent years nobody seems to have surpassed his attempt in telling the contemporary urban tales.
He might just become the Scorsese of Taiwan.
The movie is a true homage to youth, adventure, ambition and loyalty. I really liked all of the characters, from the formidable mafia boss who dons a shower cap to cook to your average blessed-by-ignorance ruffians.
Featuring some of the the most promising Taiwanese actors today: Ruan Jintian, 阮经天 (middle) as Dragon, the scarily disciplined number two and the real Meyer Lansky of the group; Zhao Youting 赵又廷 (second from right) as Mosquito, the fatherless new kid who valiantly and comically fought school bullies over a piece of chicken leg in the movie's much-acclaimed long opening scene;  Huang Denghui, 黄镫辉 (first from left) as the rash chubby guy of the group and Chen Handian, 陈汉典 (not pictured here) as the opposing gang's miserable gadfly who got his orifices glue-shut, literally. Huang and Chen are also very cool improv actors all over Taiwanese TV shows.
The only part I found less satisfying was the theatrically far-fetched subplot in which a frequent patron of Mosquito's mom's hair salon, another gangster figure and played by the director himself, turned out to be Mosquito's long-lost father.

Chinese subtitles; Enjoy the movie