The Internet Archive is not perfect. Here are common issues with Taipei Story uploads and how to fix them.
Issue 1: Out of Sync Subtitles
Issue 2: The "Bootleg" Quality
Issue 3: Missing Segments
For nearly two decades, Taipei Story was a ghost. VHS tapes from the 1980s were bootlegged, degraded, and unwatchable. When DVD arrived, the film received a notoriously bad transfer in Japan and a rare, out-of-print release in France. In the United States, the film was virtually invisible. The rights were tangled in a web of bankrupt production companies and expired licenses. taipei story internet archive
Film historians called it the "lost Yang film." Because Yang’s later epic, A Brighter Summer Day (1991), received a lavish Criterion Collection restoration, Taipei Story languished in obscurity. If you wanted to see it in 2005, you had to find a grainy, subtitled YouTube upload split into twelve parts, or a fan-made rip from a 30-year-old laser disc.
This is where the Internet Archive changed the game. The Internet Archive is not perfect
To deepen your research, look for these related items on the Internet Archive which contextualize the film: