Last Wednesday as the streets of Taipei emptied and sirens wailed across town for Taiwan’s annual air raid drills, a crowd of journalists, actors and film crew, watched similar scenes play out on screen. The press event, inside a city theatre, was launching a new Taiwanese series, Zero Day, which depicts a Chinese invasion. Timing the launch with the air raid drill was a clever piece of theatrics, but it also emphasised the real-world implications of what both events were demonstrating – the worsening threat of China’s ruling Communist party making good on its promise to annex Taiwan.
The 17-minute Zero Day trailer released that day sparked debate and anxiety across Taiwan. Despite the threat of invasion looming for decades, there are few if any modern Taiwanese cultural examples that depict this aspect of its existence.
