Jun 14, 2026 · 27 min · 10 segments
Is Trump driving movie talent out of Hollywood and back to Asia? Taiwan movie mogul Christoper Chen explains why Los Angeles is increasingly unlivable, why Taiwan’s production companies are “thriving…
Christopher ChenGuest
Divya GopalanHost
Billy SweetmanHost
Fast forward, and we're seeing that Taiwan is once again becoming kind of a hub in certain ways when it comes to certain aspects of filmmaking or film production.
Whatever happened after Trump took over the presidency last year, there's a lot of people getting deported and all the tariffs going on.
So what happens is that a lot of the people who... used to work in a film business, especially in visual effects, they start to suddenly to understand that not every guy that's very good in visual effects is American.
And if you look and understand the last 20, 30 years, all the Taiwanese people that used to work in a VFX business, they're all back home.
It's not only the Taiwanese, the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Europeans.
Los Angeles became a ghost town as a result of the labor strikes that happened with the SAG after the WGA and the fires in LA that happened last year as well.
And also because there is a kind of dismantling of the whole film business, especially accelerated by AI now.
Yeah, this is sounding terrible for America, but kind of great for Taiwan and the rest of
Yeah, because it's kind of funny because when the people came back, some of the visual effects companies, the big companies that got rid of them, They actually came back and they called us and said, yeah, do you have that person? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have that person.
Why can't we send a subcontractor some work to you guys? And say, well, but can't you find? They said, no, they got rid of everybody.
There's nobody left in the States because everything is very expensive by three, four times the living cost.
Even though they have a tax credit of 35%, they have a discounting on tax rebate, we're still much cheaper after we were putting a full pricing Here in Taipei, it's a very awkward moment kind of thing.
Fast forward, and we're seeing that Taiwan is once again becoming kind of a hub in certain ways when it comes to certain aspects of filmmaking or film production.
Whatever happened after Trump took over the presidency last year, there's a lot of people getting deported and all the tariffs going on.
So what happens is that a lot of the people who... used to work in a film business, especially in visual effects, they start to suddenly to understand that not every guy that's very good in visual effects is American.
And if you look and understand the last 20, 30 years, all the Taiwanese people that used to work in a VFX business, they're all back home.
It's not only the Taiwanese, the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Europeans.
Los Angeles became a ghost town as a result of the labor strikes that happened with the SAG after the WGA and the fires in LA that happened last year as well.
And also because there is a kind of dismantling of the whole film business, especially accelerated by AI now.
Yeah, this is sounding terrible for America, but kind of great for Taiwan and the rest of
Yeah, because it's kind of funny because when the people came back, some of the visual effects companies, the big companies that got rid of them, They actually came back and they called us and said, yeah, do you have that person? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have that person.
Why can't we send a subcontractor some work to you guys? And say, well, but can't you find? They said, no, they got rid of everybody.
There's nobody left in the States because everything is very expensive by three, four times the living cost.
Even though they have a tax credit of 35%, they have a discounting on tax rebate, we're still much cheaper after we were putting a full pricing Here in Taipei, it's a very awkward moment kind of thing.
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