The Mandopop Stars, Songs and the Urban Media Culture in Bai Jingrui’s Lonely Seventeen, Accidental Trio, and Home, Sweet Home

Bai Jingrui played a pivotal role in shaping Mandarin-language cinema in Taiwan during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article focuses on his trilogy Lonely Seventeen (1968), Accidental Trio (1969), and Home, Sweet Home (1970). While these films have often been discussed within the framework of Healthy Realism as narratives supporting postwar state ideology, they also reveal a vibrant urban media culture centered on popular music, dance, and performance. Set against the cultural policies of the martial-law period, the musical sequences in these films illuminate a central paradox of Cold War Taiwan: although the state sought to regulate popular songs, musical styles, dance practices, and bodily performance through censorship, these very conditions also fostered the rapid expansion of commercial entertainment and new audiovisual experiences across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. Featuring popular singing stars and musical performances, Bai’s films blurred the boundaries between cinema and live entertainment, transforming cinema into a mediated space where music, movement, and stardom circulated across media platforms. This article argues that these musical scenes reveal how Cold War politics was lived and negotiated through sound, bodily performance, and everyday urban media culture. By situating Bai’s musical films within the broader history of postwar audiovisual culture, this study offers a new perspective on the relationship between cinema, Mandopop, and the sensory experience of modern urban life.