It's a Taiwanese coming-of-age story set around 1980 on the Taiwanese island of Fengkuei and the large city of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, with a population of over 2,000,000. Ah-ching (Doze Niu), Ah-rong (CHang Shih), and Kuo-zai (Chao Peng-chue) are high school friends on a small fishing island with no prospects. They're recent high school graduates waiting for the military draft and constantly get into trouble. Ah-ching has a sister (Chun-Fang Chang) in Kaohsiung, so the three guys head there. They get jobs in shipping at an electronics factory and a small apartment. Near their apartment is a young couple, also working at the factory, Huang Jin-he (Tuo Tsung-hua) and Hsiao-hsing (Lin Hsiu-ling). They become friends, but Ah-ching falls for Hsiao-hsing. However, when trouble arises for Huang Jin-he, Ah-ching's pursuit of Hsiao-hsing does not end as he hoped.

"The Boys from Fengkuei" is a bit odd. The English subtitles are not very good, making the dialogue sound awkward and overly simple. Ah-ching's maturation at some points seems clear, but at other points, the three guys seem as unfocused as ever. Seeing Taiwanese society through director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's eyes is engaging. This is an early effort, and the editing, sound, and flow are choppy at points.

Searching for a specifically Chinese approach to filmmaking, Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Boys From Fengkuei was the first film in what has become the traditional Hou style, extended long takes and a fixed-camera angle that heightens the sense of real time. The film depicts the social and economic changes taking place in postwar Taiwan as reflected in the lives of ordinary working class teenagers. After finishing school, the friends have little to do but spend time getting into trouble with the police. They play crude practical jokes, gamble, drink, fight, and chase girls as they wait for compulsory military service. The most introspective of the group, Ah-Ching lives in two worlds, the dissonant world of his buddies and the traditional culture that comes back to him in flashes of memory of his father when he was a young boy.

Constantly berated by his mother for his lack of ambition, Ah-Ching and two friends leave their traditional island home in Penghu to look for work in the Southern city of Kaohsiung. On the surface, the boys are street-wise, but beneath their swagger, their naivete is apparent when they are conned into paying to see non-existent porn movies on the 11th floor of a high-rise building. Ah-Ching's sister offers the boys an apartment and they find jobs in a local factory but an infatuation with a hoodlum's girl friend leaves Ah-Ching more alone than when he came. The only film of Hou to use Western classical music as a background, The Boys From Fengkuei is a work of nostalgia and remembrance, touching on love, respect for tradition, and the joy and pain of growing up.