Notes on all 18 Features of Hou Hsiao-hsien and a Top 10 list:
Cute Girl (1980)
Cheerful Wind (1981)
The Green, Green Grass of Home (1982)
The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
A Summer at Grandpa's (1984)
A Time to Live, A Time to Die (1985)
Dust in the Wind (1986)
Daughter of the Nile (1987)
A City of Sadness (1989)
The Puppetmaster (1993)
Good Men, Good Women (1995)
Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996)
Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
Millennium Mambo (2001)
Café Lumière (2003)
Three Times (2005)
Flight of the Red Balloon (2008)
The Assassin (2015)
This spotlight started with the Early films of Hou Hsiao-hsien(HHH) and then was completed by viewing the half-dozen missing films from his
output. A few patterns emerged and I am going to arrange his films in the
following phases.
HHH 1.0: light-hearted romantic films
The first three films of Hou Hsiao-hsien films fall in this
category: Cute Girl (1980), Cheerful Wind (1981), The
Green, Green Grass of Home (1982).
The Boys from Fengkuei (1983) stands apart
from these three and can be considered HHH 1.5.
HHH 2.0: autobiographical, memories, coming-of-age
The three films in this phase are: A Summer at
Grandpa's (1984), A Time to Live, A Time to Die (1985), Dust
in the Wind (1986).
Two of the three films are part of Hou’s Coming-of-age
trilogy: A Summer at Grandpa's (1984), A Time to Live, A
Time to Die (1985), Daughter of the Nile (1987).
The style we associate with Hou Hsiao-hsien are present in
these films: long takes, static camera, realistic settings. There are sprinkles
of Ozu flourishes in Dust in the Wind, which features images of
the village, sky and landscape.
A Summer at Grandpa's, A Time to Live, A
Time to Die and Dust in the Wind have such a lived-in
feel that they don’t feel like scripted cinema. The realism of the settings,
the character’s behaviours are so well outlined that it feels like we watching
a camera capture everyday occurrences of the town folk. In addition, Dust
in the Wind nicely sets up the urban lifestyle challenges in the next
phase.
HHH 2.5: contemporary / urban portrayals
The contemporary / urban portrayal can be its own phase, but
I am putting it at 2.5 because stylistically it is an extension of the 2.0
coming-of-age phase except the main characters are in the next age category (young
adults in early 20s) compared to the teenagers from the 2.0 phase.
The first film in this phase is Daughter of the Nile
(1987) with the next few films separated by decades: Goodbye South,
Goodbye (1996), Millennium Mambo (2001) plus the third
segment of Three Times.
Daughter of the Nile is closely aligned with Millennium
Mambo in showing the isolated alienated life of a young woman in a
city. Daughter of the Nile is the first pure city set film of Hou’s
career.
Goodbye South, Goodbye is the first film
dealing with crime and gangsters even though earlier Hou films featured those
elements on the fringes. The film is also a contemporary look at youth in
Taiwan, something explored in Daughter of Nile and subsequently
in Millennium Mambo.
The final segment of Three Times (2005, A
Time For Youth) forms a connective thread along with Millennium Mambo
in depicting the isolation and alienation of characters in urban centers.
HHH 3.0: political topics are background, remembrance
of a time past
The political past serves as fodder for A City of
Sadness (1989), The Puppetmaster (1993), half of Good
Men, Good Women (1995) and also for two segments of Three Times
(2005). In addition, A City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster
form Hou’s Taiwan trilogy along with Dust in the Wind.
It is in this phase that HHH got plenty of universal acclaim
and it is easy to see why. A City of Sadness and The
Puppetmaster are two of his strongest films that intelligently use
historical aspects to craft personal tales of everyday people.
HHH 4.0: films set outside of Taiwan
The films in this phase are Flowers of Shanghai
(1998), Café Lumière (2003), Flight of the Red Balloon
(2008), The Assassin (2015).
Flowers of Shanghai and The Assassin
are set in earlier periods of China, which sets them apart from his other
Taiwan based films. Café Lumière is set in Japan (primarily
Tokyo) and is HHH’s tribute to Ozu while Flight of the Red Balloon
is set in Paris and uses the 1956 French film The Red Balloon as
a reference point.
Top 10 HHH films
With the exception Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first 3 features (the
trio of romantic comedies), his remaining films are all excellent. It is tough
to leave out many films from this 10.
1. Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
This stunning visual feast is the high-point of Hou
Hsiao-hsien’s cinematic style! The story centers around brothels in 1880’s
China where games are played and the losers have to drink up. Food is served
and then someone leaves with a girl of their choice. Problems arise when love
comes into the equation. A man wants to buy a woman’s freedom but that does not
go as per plan. Jealousy and doubts set in, and in the end, heartbreak follows.
2. Three Times (2005)
This film is the perfect encapsulation of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s
filmography as it deals with the director’s past and contemporary themes, as
indicated by the title. The titles of the segments are a nod towards the director’s
previous film A Time to Live and a Time to Die. In Three Times,
the three segments are called “A Time for Love” (1966 love story), “A Time for
Freedom (1911 segment nod towards his The Flower of Shanghai)
while “A Time for Youth” is an extension of the urban characters Hou covered
later in his career.
Each segment has a different colour palette with the first
1966 segment in simple colours (not too bright), the middle 1911 segment in
bright colours while the final 2005 segment as grayish tones. One connecting
element of the three stories in Three Times is
the usage of text messages as a form of communication. All the characters use
one form of the written word to express their feelings, be it via letters,
scrolls or SMS text messages. The audience is brought in the loop as we get to
read the messages itself in the 1911 via title cards.
3. A City of Sadness (1989)
An emotional powerful film that highlights the period of “White
Terror” in late 1940s Taiwan (1945-49) by depicting the plight of the Lin
family. This film marked a departure from Hou’s previous coming-of-age / rural
portrayals by directly depicting the impact of political changes on Taiwanese lives.
4. The Puppetmaster (1993)
This is the second in Hou’s political films after A
City of Sadness but the time period is earlier than A City of
Sadness. The Puppetmaster covers the time period from
1909 to 1945 and depicts Taiwanese life under Japanese occupation. Based on the
memoirs of Li Tian-lu, a real-life Taiwanese puppeteer, the film creatively
depicts puppet performances spliced with snippets of Li Tian-lu’s life. As a
result, the puppet performances fill a narrative gap by showing key historical
events and also highlighting the Japanese propaganda that the puppet plays were
meant to depict.
5. Dust in the Wind (1985)
An emotional yet beautiful love story that straddles the rural-urban
divide that Hou Hsiao-hsien covered in his films. In that regard, this film is
the precursor to the alienated urban life portrayed in HHH’s 2.5 phase.
6. The Assassin (2015)
The Assassin shows that in the hands of an
auteur a wuxia genre can be transformed into a work of breath-taking art. Hou
Hsiao-Hsien references his earlier films but also dives into a political
landscape with a razor-sharp eye for detail.
7. The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
The Boys from Fengkuei
observes the characters in their moments of mischief, fights, joy,
sadness without adding any emotional musical cues. The film even features a
motorcycle tracking shot, a sequence found in many subsequent Hou Hsiao-hsien
films especially Goodbye South, Goodbye.
8. Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996)
Gangsters go through their complicated lives trying to etch
out a better deal and a better future for themselves. At times the movie has
shades of Hong Kong gangster/Japanese Yakuza movies but this one stands
completely on its own. The film gives a glimpse into the lowest rungs of
gangster business, a tier where negotiations are made over the kind of chickens
to be traded, gambling rackets, family inheritances and other back-room deals. The
camera just waits patiently and allows us to observe what the characters will
do next, how they will react and how they will cope.
9. Millennium Mambo (2001)
With Millennium Mambo, Hou changes gears
completely and portrays the club hopping life of Taiwanese youth. The film is
basked in cool bluish visuals mixed with some bright neon lights as the main
character Vicky (Shu Qi) alternates from clubs and bars while her boyfriend
gets into fights. Shu Qi carries this film on her shoulders and the camera
leisurely hovers over her as she changes clothes, walks around half-naked,
makes love, gets into fights with her boyfriend and attempts to run away from
him.
10. Café Lumière (2003)
The movie is HHH’s tribute to Ozu’s Tokyo and I hadn’t
appreciated this movie when I first saw it because I hadn’t seen too many Ozu
films. Café Lumière is a lovingly nod towards Ozu but also shows
the tender restraint in Hou’s style. This film is a rarity now because it shows
us a Tokyo that isn’t overrun with tourists like our current times. In a way,
this film is a memory of the charm and beauty one could find in Tokyo decades ago.
Other Reading:
1. David Bordwell on Early Hou films.
2. Yvonne
Ng on The Puppetmaster (note: this downloads a pdf).
3. Kent
Jones on HHH in Film Comment.
4. J.
Hoberman on The Puppetmaster.
5. Jonathan Rosenbaum on HHH.
