Best Films from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

Wonders in the Dark is having a poll to determine the best 15 films from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

It is tough to narrow down just 15 films from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan especially since they all have a rich history of cinema going back almost a century to the 1920s-early 1930s. On top of that, there are many diverse genre films from this part of the world making it challenging to pit one film style against another. Ultimately, I opted for the following 15 films.

Best Films from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan

1. In the Mood for Love (2000, Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai)
2. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000, Taiwan, Edward Yang)
3. Flowers of Shanghai (1998, Taiwan, Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
4. Platform (2000, China, Jia Zhang-ke)
5. Eat Drink Man Woman (1994, Taiwan, Ang Lee)
6. Election (2005, Hong Kong, Johnnie To)
7. Spring in a Small Town (1948, China, Fei Mu)
8. Raise the Red Lantern (1991, China, Zhang Yimou)
9. West of the Tracks (2002, China, Wang Bing)
10. What Time is It There? (2001, Taiwan, Tsai Ming-liang)
11. Chungking Express (1994, Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai)
12. Infernal Affairs (2002, Hong Kong, Andrew Lau/Alan Mak)
13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Taiwan/Hong Kong/China, Ang Lee)
14. Devils on the Doorstep (2000, China, Wen Jiang)
15. Ash is Purest White (2018, China, Jia Zhang-ke)

One surprising aspect of this list was finding out that I included 5 films from the Year 2000. That means 1/3 of all the films in this list came from one year. The stellar quality of these 5 films does indicate that 2000 was a strong year for Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

In the Mood for Love (2000, Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai)
Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000, Taiwan, Edward Yang)
Platform (2000, China, Jia Zhang-ke)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Taiwan/Hong Kong/China, Ang Lee)
Devils on the Doorstep (2000, China, Wen Jiang)

In the Mood for Love is one of Wong Kar-wai’s most iconic films. Yi Yi is considered one of Edward Yang’s best films while Jia Zhang-ke’s second feature, Platform, helped propel his name globally. Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon certainly established a new found love for wuxia in the West. Wen Jiang’s powerful 2nd feature Devils on the Doorstep got plenty of attention after it won the Grand Jury prize at Cannes 2000.

[Updated List, May 11, 2022]

Best Films from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan

1. In the Mood for Love (2000, Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai)
2. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000, Taiwan, Edward Yang)
3. Flowers of Shanghai (1998, Taiwan, Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
4. Platform (2000, China, Jia Zhang-ke)
5. Boat People (1982, Hong Kong, Ann Hui)
6. Eat Drink Man Woman (1994, Taiwan, Ang Lee)
7. Election (2005, Hong Kong, Johnnie To)
8. Raise the Red Lantern (1991, China, Zhang Yimou)
9. West of the Tracks (2002, China, Wang Bing)
10. What Time is It There? (2001, Taiwan, Tsai Ming-liang)
11. Chungking Express (1994, Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai)
12. Infernal Affairs (2002, Hong Kong, Andrew Lau/Alan Mak)
13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Taiwan/Hong Kong/China, Ang Lee)
14. Devils on the Doorstep (2000, China, Wen Jiang)
15. Ash is Purest White (2018, China, Jia Zhang-ke)
16. Spring in a Small Town (1948, China, Fei Mu)

The Films of Edward Yang

 "Did you like the movie?"
"A bit too serious".
"You prefer comedies?"
"Not really. But it didn't have to be so sad."
"Life is a mixture of sad and happy things. Movies are so lifelike, that's why we love them."
"Then who needs movies? Just stay home and live life!".
"My uncle says we live three times as long since man invented movies."
"How can that be?"
"It means movies give as twice what we get from daily life."
-- Yi Yi (A One and a two), Edward Yang

Once again, I started at the end. Yi Yi (2000) was the last film that Edward Yang directed but it was the first of his films that I saw. To make matters worse, I saw the film shortly after Edward Yang passed away on June 29, 2007 at the age of 59. Just as I was discovering the works of one of the best directors in the world, he was gone thereby depriving the world of his talent. The extent of that loss has become more stark in the last few years especially as the status of Taiwan changes politically, economically and even socially. I wasn’t aware of any political, economic and social aspects covered in Edward Yang’s films back in 2007. These aspects didn’t catch my eye as I watched a few more of his films over the years such as A Brighter Summer Day (1991), Taipei Story (1985) and The Terrorizers (1986). Therefore, it felt appropriate to do a proper spotlight and watch all his features in order.

The plan was to watch all of Edward Yang’s seven features and the first short he directed as part of the omnibus In Our Time.

In Our Time (1982, Tao Te-chen, Edward Yang, Ko I-Chen, Yi Chang)
That Day, on the Beach (1983)
Taipei Story (1985)
The Terrorizers (1986)
A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
A Confucian Confusion (1994)
Mahjong (1996)
Yi Yi (2000)

Note: I couldn’t get the DVD of Edward Yang’s first feature That Day, on the Beach, which is also Christopher Doyle's first film as a cinematographer. The DVD was available a few years ago but I delayed getting it and now it is out of print. So I continued the spotlight without it.

Edward Yang’s name is associated with the “New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema” along with that of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang and Ang Lee. However, as it turns out, within this New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema, there are 2 phases with Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien falling in the first phase while Tsai Ming-liang and Ang Lee being in the second phase. The association between Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang is more solidified as well due to their collaboration on Edward Yang’s early films. Hou wrote and acted in Taipei Story while also starred in Yang’s first feature, That Day, on the Beach. Both were also born in 1947 with Hou being older by a few months.

Hou in Taipei Story

However, Edward Yang’s style and themes are quite different from those of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang.

Confucius: The City is too crowded
Disciples: What can we do about it?
Confucius: “Make the people rich”
Disciples: “What comes next after they are made rich?

2,000 years of poverty and struggles later,
It took a city named Taipei just 20 years to become one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

The above words are shown at the start of A Confucian Confusion (1994) and outline one big aspect covered in Edward Yang’s films. His films, starting with 1985’s Taipei Story, depict how Taiwan’s role in the world changed. Taiwan and its capital city, Taipei, went through a technological manufacturing change starting in the 1980s. 

This change impacted the social and economic life in Taiwan with regards to jobs/career and the tension this new working life would put on relationships. That is why Yang’s films feature many isolated characters and relationships in turmoil, themes and elements often found in Western films. However, Edward Yang depicted isolated characters in a different manner than Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. Tsai Ming-liang has shown lonely characters in his films but these characters live on their own or are seeking companionship. On the other hand, Edward Yang depicted isolated characters in a relationship or within a multi-generational family. Showing families and how different family members impact each other is a key part of Edward Yang’s films.

Yi Yi feels like the culmination of Yang’s career and all the various themes he explored in his earlier films. Yi Yi contains combines elements of Coming of age, romance/relationship/marital problems and career/economic discussions. 

A Brighter Summer Day

Edward Yang explored Coming of Age in more detail via In Our Time and A Brighter Summer Day while he depicted career discussions and relationship/marital problems in varying degrees in That Day, on the Beach, Taipei Story, The Terrorizers, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong. Gangs and violence are missing from Yi Yi and this is an element that Yang showed in A Brighter Summer Day while Mahjong is a more detailed coverage of the gang world and violence. The Terrorizers is also book-ended by a violent aspect which is nicely woven into the story.

The Terrorizers

Put together, all these films highlight the changing nature of Taiwan historically, politically, economically and socially. The inclusion of economic aspects is also based on Edward Yang’s career and how he came into movies. 

Robert Sklar's Cineaste interview from 2000 is worth reading but these words from Yang helped illuminate some scenes in Yi Yi:

"I found a job in Seattle at a research laboratory that contracted to do classified defense projects in microcomputers. I was among the first generation of designers and applicators for microcomputers and microprocessors. "

This explains the details regarding the dialogues/scenes of computer design and venture capitalists shown in Yi Yi. Edward Yang was familiar with this computer world in real life and he found a smart manner to incorporate aspects of this tech world. Of course, to Yang’s credit, he doesn’t include any detailed technical discussions but instead uses the tech world as a lubricant to depict human relationships, how people interact with one another and what motivates some people.

Edward Yang’s films covered the first phase of Taiwan’s economic change. Now, as Taiwan is in the middle of another economic change, I thought of Edward Yang again.  What would Edward Yang make of Taipei today?  The following quotes from Amy Qin and Amy Chang Chien’s NYT article stand-out:

The relatively few people who are allowed to enter Taiwan have been coming in droves, and they’ve helped to fuel an economic boom.

The influx of people helped make Taiwan one of last year’s fastest-growing economies — indeed, one of the few to expand at all.

Steve Chen, 42, a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur who co-founded YouTube, was the first to sign up for the gold card program. He moved to the island from San Francisco with his wife and two children in 2019. Then, after the pandemic hit, many of his friends in Silicon Valley, particularly those with Taiwanese heritage, began to join him — a reverse brain drain, of sorts.

Taiwan’s leaders say the infusion of foreign talent has given a shot of energy to its tech industry, which is better known for manufacturing prowess than for entrepreneurial culture.

The economic changes in Taiwan are also changing the social life on the island. Maybe in the future, someone will document the evolving changes in Taiwan but Edward Yang covered it first. For that, his valuable cinematic contributions to the world will forever be cemented.

Other reading:

1. Jonathan Rosenbaum: Exiles in Modernity

2. David Bordwell: A Brighter Summer Day
3. Bordwell again
4. Lawrence Garcia on Yi Yi

Tsai Ming-liang: Taiwan to KL

Shifting location from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur:

Tsai Ming-liang returns to his birth country Malaysia to make his first feature outside of Taiwan. For good measure he transports his cinematic character Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng) to hot & humid Kuala Lumpur.

At the film's start, the rain has stopped and leaves an empty building packed with water.

After getting beat up by a bunch of street thugs, Hsiao-kang is rescued by a group of Bangladeshi workers who let him stay with them. One of them (below) takes a special interest in Hsiao-kang.

But Hsiao-kang does not recognize the love showered upon him and instead chases women around the city.

It may be a different city but loneliness follows him around, along with a few quirky affairs.



Will there be more adventures for Hsiao-kang? I certainly hope so as I have not tired of his characters in Tsai Ming-liang's features.

Here's a recap of the older films:
[Correction added: I keep making the mistake of using Lee Kang-sheng's name everywhere as opposed to using his character's name of Hsiao-kang. Since the character's name is hardly (or never?) spoken in the movies, I blur the line between the two.]

A teenager rebels:

1992's wonderful Rebels of the Neon God shows a young Hsiao-kang developing a crush and getting jealous. But before he fell for the girl, he was angered by an act of vandalism directed towards his father. Despite his young age, he is patient and quietly waits to extract his revenge. In the end, he feels a tinge of guilt for his actions yet continues along his drifting ways. His relationship with his parents is starting to crumble as he is rebelling against society and himself -- he drops out of school and uses the money to spend time at arcades and wander aimlessly around the city.

Love and a place to stay:

Lee Kang-sheng's character has grown up slightly when we meet him next in 1994's Vive L'Amour. He now has a job, being a door to door salesman. Ofcourse, he is still as mischievous as ever. During a job visit, he finds a key hanging outside an apartment door. He quietly snags the key and sneaks in one night to find an empty apartment. The vacant apartment is in the process of being sold with the realtor (May Lin played by Yang Kuei-Mei) dropping by occasionally to show it to prospective clients or to use the place for her own sexual acts. It turns out that May Lin's lover (Ah-Jung played by Chen Chao-jung) also uses the apartment as a place to stay. So both Ah-Jung and Hsiao-kang find themselves as unexpected room-mates. While Ah-Jung is able to satisfy his desires with May Lin, Hsiao-kang finds pleasure by spying on the two making love and gratifying himself. But all three characters are extremely lonely in the vast and cold city. At the start of the movie, we find Hsiao-kang attempting suicide. His appetite for life is slightly increased thanks to the unexpected encounter with Ah-Jung.

A strange illness:

At the start of The River (1997), Hsiao-kang is quietly heading towards a department store. A girl heading down the escalator recognizes him and the two hang out together. This chance encounter proves to be fatal for Hsiao-kang. While tagging along with the girl, he finds himself at a film-shoot and is asked to play the role of an extra -- the film's director wants him to play a dead body floating in the river. Hsiao-kang is reluctant to play the role because the river appears to be 'filthy'. Still he agrees and is very convincing playing a dead body floating away. But shortly after that role, he develops a strange itch in his neck. Gradually, the itch develops into a mysterious illness which takes over him -- he is in constant pain and wants to die. His worried father is willing to try anything to cure his son but Hsiao-kang's condition gets worse.

In this film, we truly get to see a different side to Hsiao-kang's parents -- we get to see his father's secrets and observe his mother's day to day life. The illness that inflicts Hsiao-kang temporarily brings the parents together but it is clear their lives are drifting away. And a strange encounter between father and son also ensures that the two won't ever see eye to eye.

Rain & cue music:

In 1998's The Hole Taiwan is getting pounded by heavy rainfall on the eve of the year 2000. Most apartments are suffering from leaky ceilings. A plumber comes to a man's (Lee Kang-sheng who is credited in the movie as just "the man upstairs") apartment to check for leaks. But the plumber makes a big hole in the man's living room. Lee Kang-sheng still plays a lonely character like in the other Tsai Ming-liang movies. One night, he returns home terribly drunk. After he stumbles in his apartment, he throws up over the hole.





The results of his drunken exploits find their way to the apartment below. Needless to say, the woman living downstairs is not amused. "The woman downstairs" is played by Kuei-Mei Yang, another familiar face found in Tsai Ming-liang films.

Both the man upstairs and woman downstairs are lonely. Eventually, the two start finding a common bond with each other. The hole which is a cause of dispute ends up being a salvation for both.

Musical numbers -- This is the first Tsai Ming-liang film where musical numbers make an appearance. Such musical dances later show up in The Wayward Cloud as well but they got a start here.


The numbers provide some humour and respite away from the bleakness of the character's situations. The dance songs are shown from the woman's perspective as her feelings are mirrored in the song lyrics.

Another job and a real love:

Hsiao-kang's father passes away in 2001's What Time is it there?. While Hsiao-kang is not too concerned with his father's death, his mother is convinced the father's ghost visits them. Also the flooding problem in the apartment that the mother had fixed in The River mysteriously returns. Hsiao-kang has found a new job selling watches on a skywalk. One day a girl (Shiang-chyi) wants to buy his personal watch which has dual times. At first he is reluctant to part with the watch but eventually gives it to her. The girl tells him she is leaving for Paris the next day. After she leaves, Hsiao-kang is obsessed with Paris and the thought of that woman. He goes about changing all the watches around him (and even in the city) to reflect Parisian time. Meanwhile, Shiang-chyi is lonely and having a hard time adjusting to life in Paris.

This film is the first clear reflection of Tsai Ming-liang's influence. Just like François Truffaut used the same actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud) to play the role of Antoine Doinel in multiple films, Tsai is doing the same with Lee Kang-sheng (playing the character of Hsiao-kang). The one difference is the character of Lee Kang-sheng has gone on for more than 16 years and multiple films while Antoine Doinel was used in three films over a period of 11 years. In What time is it there? Hsiao-kang watches The 400 Blows and falls in love with the film, while Shiang-chyi comes across an older Jean-Pierre Léaud on a bench in Paris. One cinematic circle is tied.....

The girl returns:

The short film The Skywalk is gone (2002, 26 minutes) is an epilogue to What Time is it there?. Shiang-chyi returns from Paris to discover that the skywalk where she bought the watch from is gone. In the absence of the skywalk, she attempts to cross the heavy traffic road and gets a ticket from a traffic police officer. Somewhow, she loses her id card as the officer was giving her a ticket. The loss of her id card is a symbolic reflection of her mental state -- she is at a loss because the missing skywalk represented a link to her past life in the city.

Near the end of the short, Hsiao-kang makes an appearance. He crosses paths with Shiang-chyi as he is going upstairs in an underground pathway. But Shiang-chyi does not recognize him and continues walking. Hsiao-kang stops, turns around and ponders. But he has no time to chase after her as he has a job interview to rush to.

Watermelon and sex:

What is Hsiao-kang's next job? We see him giving a nervous interview to be a porn actor at the end of The Skywalk is gone. He does not perform very well in the interview but the start of 2005's The Wayward Cloud finds him pleasuring women while eating a juicy watermelon all in front of a camera crew. So he must have impressed his employer somehow!

Fade to black, end of film, theater shutdown:

2003's Good Bye, Dragon Inn shows a theater running its final shows before the inevitable shutdown. We see how the movie hall goes from days when it was completely packed to the modern time when only a few film buffs bother showing up. The once polished cinema is now falling apart and the rains causes water to flood the hall floors. Lee Kang-sheng only has a brief cameo playing the theater projectionist. One can imagine his character, Hsiao-kang, working this job as a secondary stint to his porn star career. In fact, given Hsiao-kang's past behaviour, I would not put it past him to splice the film with shocking images from other films, a la Tyler Durden (Fight Club).

Curtains down. Rain drops.

Spotlight on Taiwan, take two, part two

"Did you like the movie?"
"A bit too serious".
"You prefer comedies?"
"Not really. But it didn't have to be so sad."
"Life is a mixture of sad and happy things. Movies are so lifelike, that's why we love them."
"Then who needs movies? Just stay home and live life!".
"My uncle says we live three times as long since man invented movies."
"How can that be?"
"It means movies give as twice what we get from daily life."
-- Yi Yi (A One and a two), Edward Yang

In April, I had planned my spotlight on Taiwan by watching films from Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. Both Yang and Hou are credited with the "New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema" (starting from the 1980's) while Tsai is considered part of the Second New Wave, starting from the 1990s. But I put the spotlight on hold until the past few weeks. Over the last few months, some significant events have occurred with regards to the two New Wave directors -- the World unfortunately lost Edward Yang who passed away on June 29. And Hou Hsiao-hsien's first non-Taiwenese film, The Flight of the Red Balloon premiered at Cannes leading his work to be judged in a newer light from his native Taiwanese works (Café Lumière was still a joint Taiwanese/Japanese venture).

Now, the first Edward Yang film that I have seen is the last film that he completed -- Yi Yi. One film is not enough to establish a proper analysis but Yi Yi is such a beautiful film that it can stand on its own.

Yi Yi (2000, Director Edward Yang): Rating 10/10

There is a poetic beauty that resonates throughout this film which shows the complicated lives of the Jian family and the people that interact with them, including their neighbours, friends, relatives and co-workers. In the hands of a lesser director, the film would have turned into a melodramatic soap opera as the topics covered include wedding, affairs, first love, relationship crisis, corporate politics and even murder. But Edward Yang ensures that all the issues and characters are handled tenderly and each character is given enough screen time so that the audience can get to know them better and understand their motives. Even at a length of 170 minutes, the film does not feel long and is a real heart warming tale.

Film Style -- Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang:

Going by Yi Yi as an example, Yang's style is closer to that of Ang Lee rather than Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. Ang Lee has handled family oriented stories in the past which is what Yi Yi is -- multiple characters are shown with screen time given to each character; there are no long takes in Yi Yi but sometimes depending on a situation, the camera lingers around a character for a few extra seconds. Whereas, both HHH and Tsai use long takes (with less edit cuts) to focus on one or even two characters in their films. The long takes allow us to soak in all the details around the characters and to fully understand their motives. Two different styles but the end result is still the same -- absorbing cinema!

Hou Hsiao-hsien:

Millennium Mambo (2001): Rating 7.5/10

One of the strongest aspects of Hou's Flowers of Shanghai was the colorful visuals which perfectly conveyed the exotic excesses of the brothels of 19th century China. 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 boy-friend 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.

Vicky's character and the film's portrayal of modern youth in Taipei seems to have been the basis for the third short in Three Times. The 2005 released film contained three short segments set in three different time periods -- 1911, 1965 and 2005. Each short's visual look was completely different; the 1911 segment appears to have been straight out of Flowers of Shanghai and the 2005 segment has a similar feel to Millennium Mambo.

Tsai Ming-liang

When I came across my first film by Tsai Ming-liang What Time is it there?, it took me a while to let all the details sink in. It was a beautiful film but back then I didn't realize that I had jumped onto the story half-way. The original story of the main character Lee Kang-sheng (Hsiao-kang) started as early as 1991 with Youngsters. With each film, Lee Kang-sheng's character grew up and underwent a transformation -- along the way he switched jobs, fell in love, felt loneliness (even attempted suicide) and eventually found bliss working in the porn film industry. My last image of Lee Kang-sheng was achieving orgasmic joys along with singing/dancing around Taipei in 2005's The Wayward Cloud. In 2006, Lee Kang-sheng finally left Taipei for hot and sultry Kuala Lumpur as Malaysian born Tsai Ming-liang headed to his birth-land to cinematically capture Malaysia for the first time. I can't wait to watch that adventure but until then, I decided to catch up the story from the start. Well almost from the start...

A teenager rebels:

1992's wonderful Rebels of the Neon God shows a young Lee Kang-sheng developing a crush and getting jealous. But before he fell for a girl, he was angered by an act of vandalism directed towards his father. Despite his young age, he is patient and quietly waits to extract his revenge. In the end, he feels a tinge of guilt for his actions yet continues along his drifting ways. His relationship with his parents is starting to crumble as he is rebelling against society and himself -- he drops out of school and uses the money to spend time at arcades and wander aimlessly around the city.

Love and a place to stay:

Lee Kang-sheng has grown up slightly when we meet him next in 1994's Vive L'Amour. He atleast has a job, being a door to door salesman. Ofcourse, he is still as mischievous as ever. During a job visit, he finds a key hanging outside an apartment door. He quietly snags the key and sneaks in one night to find the apartment empty. The vacant apartment is in the process of being sold with the realtor (May Lin played by Yang Kuei-Mei) dropping by occasionally to show it to prospective clients or to use the place for her own sexual acts. It turns out that May Lin's lover (Ah-Jung played by Chen Chao-jung) also uses the apartment as a place to stay. So both Ah-Jung and Lee Kang-sheng find themselves as unexpected room-mates. While Ah-Jung is able to satisfy his desires with May Lin, Lee Kang-sheng finds pleasure by spying on the two making love and gratifying himself. But all three characters are extremely lonely in the vast and cold city. At the start of the movie, we find Lee Kang-sheng attempting suicide. His appetite for life is slightly increased thanks to the unexpected encounter with Ah-Jung.

A strange illness:

At the start of The River (1997), Lee Kang-sheng is quietly heading towards a department store. A girl heading down the escalator recognizes him and the two hang out together. This chance encounter proves to be fatal for Lee Kang-sheng. While tagging along with the girl, he finds himself at a film-shoot and is asked to play the role of an extra -- the film's director wants him to play a dead body floating in the river. Lee Kang-sheng is reluctant to play the role because the river appears to be 'filthy'. Still he agrees and is very convincing playing a dead body floating away. But shortly after that role, he develops a strange itch in his neck. Gradually, the itch develops into a mysterious illness which takes over him -- he is in constant pain and wants to die. His worried father is willing to try anything to cure his son but Lee Kang-sheng's condition gets worse.

In this film, we truly get to see a different side to Lee Kang-sheng's parents -- we get to see his father's secrets and observe his mother's day to day life. The illness that inflicts Lee Kang-sheng temporarily brings the parents together but it is clear their lives are drifting away. And a strange encounter between father and son also ensures that the two won't ever see eye to eye.

Another job and a real love:

Lee Kang-sheng's father passes away in 2001's What Time is it there?. While Lee Lang-sheng is not too concerned with his father's death, his mother is convinced the father's ghost visits them. Also the apartment flooding problem that the mother had fixed in The River mysteriously returns. Lee Kang-sheng has found a new job selling watches on a skywalk. One day a girl (Shiang-chyi) wants to buy his personal watch which has dual times. At first he is reluctant to part with the watch but eventually gives it to her. The girl tells him she is leaving for Paris the next day. After she leaves, Lee Kang-sheng is obsessed with Paris and the thought of that woman. He goes about changing all the watches around him (and even in the city) to reflect Parisian time. Meanwhile, Shiang-chyi is lonely and having a hard time adjusting to life in Paris.

The film is the first clear reflection of Tsai Ming-liang's influence. Just like François Truffaut used the same actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud) to play the role of Antoine Doinel in multiple films, Tsai is doing the same with Hsiao-kang (playing the character of Lee Kang-sheng). The one difference is the character of Lee Kang-sheng has gone on for more than 16 years and multiple films while Antoine Doinel was used in three films over a period of 11 years. In What time is it there?, Lee Kang-sheng watches The 400 Blows and falls in love with the film, while Shiang-chyi comes across an older Jean-Pierre Léaud on a bench in Paris. One cinematic circle is tied.....

The girl returns:

The short film The Skywalk is gone (2002, 26 minutes) is an epilogue to What Time is it there?. Shiang-chyi returns from Paris to discover that the skywalk where she bought the watch from is gone. In the absence of the skywalk, she attempts to cross the heavy traffic road and gets a ticket from a traffic police officer. Somewhow, she loses her id card as the officer was giving her a ticket. The loss of her id card is a symbolic reflection of her mental state -- she is at a loss because the missing skywalk represented a link to her past life in the city.

Near the end of the short, Lee Kang-sheng makes an appearance. He crosses paths with Shiang-chyi as he is going upstairs in an underground pathway. But Shiang-chyi does not recognize him and continues walking. Lee Kang-sheng stops, turns around and ponders. But he has no time to chase after her as he has a job interview to rush to.

Watermelon and sex:

What is Lee Kang-sheng's next job? We see him giving a nervous interview to be a porn actor at the end of The Skywalk is gone. He does not perform very well in the interview but the start of 2005's The Wayward Cloud finds him pleasuring women while eating a juicy watermelon all in front of a camera crew. So he must have impressed his employer somehow!

And that is where my contact with Lee Kang-sheng ends. I still have a few more months before I truly learn what he did in Kuala Lumpur.

Fade to black, end of film, theater shutdown:

2003's Good Bye, Dragon Inn shows a theater running its final shows before the inevitable shutdown. We see how the movie hall goes from days of being completely packed to only catering to a few film buffs. The once polished cinema is now falling apart and the rains causes water to flood the hall floors. Hsiao-kang only has a brief cameo playing the theater projectionist. One can imagine his character, Lee Kang-sheng working this job as a secondary stint to his porn star career. In fact, given Lee Kang-sheng's past behaviour, I would not put it past him to splice the film with shocking images from other films, a la Tyler Durden (Fight Club).

Curtains down. Rain drops.

Films viewed in this round:

Vive L'Amour (1994): Rating 8/10
The River (1997): Rating 9/10
The Skywalk Is Gone (2002): Rating 10/10
Good Bye, Dragon Inn (2003): Rating 7.5/10

---

part II of the profile.

Global Cinematic Duels, Part I

I am tired of people saying that there are no good movies being made currently and that the best cinema was back in the 50’s & 60’s. Ok, back in the 50’s and 60’s, International cinema was something all right. Besides the great directors plying their trade in a number of countries, there were some vintage movies. For example, I don’t think there can be a finer movie than 1966’s Battle of Algiers made today which captures the essence of a society so well. But the same thing can be said of literature as well. The literature of the past meant something but today it is mostly nonsense best sellers. That being said, there are some very good collection of non-fiction work out there nowadays, more so than previously. In the end, it is all subjective really. We all connect with an artistic work at some subjective level, no matter how much we objectively try to judge it. And when it comes to movies or books, sometimes the true merit of a work can’t be assessed until the future. Four decades ago, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell wrote about a dark future where individual freedoms didn’t exist. And yet, in the modern year of 2006 we are living some sort of future that those writers imagined. Life has imitated art or maybe Life has taken its inspiration from art? I will never forget the section from Arthur Clarke’s 2001 where he mentions a future where man can read any newspaper from the world on a small computer like device, which is achieved in the present by reading papers via the internet on a laptop. While some works can mimic or predict the future, others end up remaining timeless because of their inherent humanistic meanings, like Shakespeare. Shakespeare will never go out of fashion and will be forever interpretated and continue to add meaning. And two such interpretations were made in Bollywood recently. One wonders why it took so long? Love, treachery, jealousy and murder are all trademarks of the usual melodramas but this time, those stories are told via the lens of the talented bard's works.

If one is tired of seeing nonsense in the theatres, there are always foreign movies one can rent. If that is not possible, then surely, one can rent the old cinematic gems just to tune out the noise of the big budget crap. I decided to conduct an experiement – over the course of 2 months, I would try to balance my viewings with new released big budget movies mixed with foreign movie rentals from past and present. Then I would set up a competition with the movies divided into different cinematic regions and at the end, just see which country or continent came out on top. The only restriction I put on myself was that the movies would be all that played either in the local theatres or were available at one of the video stores -- no internet renting (something I have been lucky to avoid so far). The end winner really surprised me and provided me with a cliched lesson – quality always wins over quantity, no matter which country the movie is from and regarless of the film's budget!!

Countries/Continents and Film Selections:

USA: Pirates 2, A Scanner Darkly, The Devil Wears Prada, Serenity, FlightPlan

The first movie of this competition was a movie that I relunctanly watched its opening day – Pirates 2. I loved the first movie but I didn’t expect much from the second one. Yet I found myself in the theatre on opening day at the 4:20 pm show. And I was really surprised – the movie was much much WORSE that I could have imagined! In fact, it was the worst movie I have seen this year. It is solely responsible for sinking the overall rating of the USA category. Is it fair to let a commercial crap sink other worthwhile movies? Yes!! If junk is made from one country, then it deserves to shame all other movies from that region. For the record, here are the other ratings:


Pirates 2: Rating 5/10
A Scanner Darkly: Rating 9.5/10
The Devil Wears Prada: Rating 8/10
Serenity: Rating 8.5/10
FlightPlan: Rating 6.5/10

Overall rating: 37.5/5 = 7.5


The only true brilliant movie in this list is A Scanner Darkly with Serenity getting a good nod. Linklater has taken a typical Philip K. Dick story and added the classy animation technique used to success in Waking Life and produced a wonderous paranoid big brother drug induced nightmarish reality. Serenity does proud to the much put down sci-fi genre and brings a fresh far away universe to cinema, and along the way, proves that film (and even tv) fans know more than studio executives, who never wanted the original tv series or movie to exist in the first place. The Devil Wears Prada is sheer fun. Nothing extraordinary here, but plain fun. The first few minutes are one of the best sequences in the movie, which show different women getting dressed. Just by their clothes, we can tell a lot about the different women and that scene captures the classiness of the film, which really is thin on substance but has plenty of style. The less said of Flightplan the better. In fact, I don’t think I can better review this film than Pacze has on his blog – his review is just wicked and completely spot-on.

Asia: Omkara, Mixed Doubles, Good Men, Good Women (Hsiao-hsien Hou), Ab Tak Chaphhan, Maqbool, Election 2

Gangster central really. 3 out and out gangster movies, with 2 of them of them being Shakespearean adaptations and the third being a Godfather mould. A 4th movie is gang related but shown from the side of cops, often left out in gang movies. The remaining 2 movies may be out of place but they capture a time and place of Asia that is worth showing, one modern (Mumbai in Mixed Doubles) and the past (Taiwan in Good Men, Good Women). The biggest disappointment for me was Hou Hsian-Hein’s feature which really was the weakest showing in this category. Having loved his other movies, maybe I had set the bar too high and was not engaged with a story whose fragments can be found in his other movies.

When it comes to the gangster movies, it seems a common theme was present – power won by unfair means will never result in peace and will always end in destruction. Typical story of Godfather like mafia movies that cine flicks around the world have emitted previously, but this time Vishal Bhardwaj has taken that story and wrapped it around the core of Shakespearean plays. Maqbool was a remake of Macbeth and got plenty of praise when it was released. It is a very good movie with excellent acting from all but one main character – Lady Macbeth’s character. Of all the actresses that Bhardwaj could have taken, why did he have to take Tabu? Tabu is over-rated and has been useless in the last few films that she has been in. She was the dull muse that could not inspire anyone and sank M.F Husain’s Meenaxi and has since been playing the stupid innocent_woman_ role for a few years now. In Maqbool she was dull, uninspiring and certainly not as manipulative as she should have been. That is why I had to take my points off my rating for this movie. Omkara on the other hand was far more superior in the acting category as the vibrant Konkana Sen Sharma lit up the screen with every word and Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan played their roles perfectly while enacting Othello in a rural Uttar Pradesh setting. The only negative was the unnecessary songs which hampered the otherwise cool flow.

The first Election movie was perfect as it added a layer of democracy to the gang genre. The second one picks up where the first one left off and has a wicked ending which promises more feature sequels with far more destruction in store; the cycle will be complete surely in future such sequels. At the end of the first movie, Lok is democratically elected to rule all the triads and it seems that peace will reign. The second movie picks up 2 years after the first when another election is coming up. Lok can’t think of giving up his position and his greed makes him far more ruthless (Shakespeare would have understood Lok’s situation). Jimmy on the other hand just wants to be a "businessman". But he finds that he can’t go clean until he becomes the chairman of the Triads himself. So starts a ruthless battle between Jimmy and Lok which ends only when Jimmy hacks (literally) his way to the top. But a tasty twist leaves Jimmy in a precarious position where he might never be just a "businessman".

Ab Tak Chaphhan is a Ram Gopal factory production which is quite good much to my disbelief as I had previously rejected this movie on a quick viewing a year ago. The story is about cops who have to break the law themselves in order to keep the balance with Nana Patekar giving a riveting performance. Mixed Doubles is an decent comedy about a young couple living in Mumbai who are duly going through the stages of their marriage until the husband gets obsessed with the idea of ‘swinging’ to spice their married life up. The one bright spot in the movie -- Konkana Sen Sharma!


Omkara: 9/10
Mixed Doubles: Rating 7.5/10
Good Men, Good Women: Rating 5.5/10
Ab Tak Chaphhan: Rating 9.5/10
Maqbool: Rating 8.5/10
Election 2: 9

Overall rating: 49 = 8.17


Europe: Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, Belgium), Pusher (Nicolas Winding Refn, Denmark, 1996), Buffet Froid (Bertrand Blier, France, 1979), I, Soliti Ignoti(Big deal on Madonna Street, Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1958), Element of Crime (Germany), Descent (Neil Marshall, UK)

A completely mixed bag of European flicks with my favourite being the Brit thriller The Descent. The story is simple but very well done – 6 women go cave exploring until they find something sinister hidden beneath the earth. Blood and darkness are the main elements in a gripping edge of the seat thriller that is truly worth watching in a dark theatre. The only negative has to be the chopped up ending for the American version which tries to give a glimmer of hope but I rather would have preferred the Brit version which really ends in darkness. Man Bites Dog is an interesting experiment – a film crew follows a killer who randomly picks his victims and executes them in unique ways. Shot in black & white, it is not a tasteful watch but was made long before the crazy of American reality tv shows started to dominate popular watching so, in a way this movie was a landmark in how cinema is observed. With TIFF 2006 showing two movies where the audience simply observes two characters, one a soccer player going about his job of entertainment, and another where a woman is going about her deadly task of killing, Man Bites Dog fits in with that category of observing different people try to make sense of their lives.

Pusher has a lot of hype around it and that is all it is, just hype. It is nothing great! In fact, I wish the movie was in reverse like Gaspar Noé's Irréversible as that really would have made this watchable because the best parts of the movie are near the end. The movie chronicles a week in the life of a drug pusher. At the start of the week, things are looking good for him as he is collecting his payments and is happy (these are the boring parts of the movie which one has to painfully endure). But a few bad situations leave him in debt and as the week goes on, he sinks further and further. This is probably the most interesting segment in the movie as we desperately see him trying to stay afloat. And in the end, just when things might finally turn around for him, all his hopes are snatched away in an instant. Two more sequels have been made for this Danish indie but I think I will pass on those ventures.

Element of Crime was one of Lars Von Trier’s earlier movies and it is a seductive crime thriller viewed through a cool yellow lens. Everything appears yellow in the film and this filtered lens heightens the mood of the film and punches certain features up a bit more, for example, a pool of blood stands out more in the background. A detective is on the trail of a killer but in order to catch him, he tries to mimic the killer’s ways until, he steps too far and starts acting like a killer himself. Not a perfect movie but a great start from a director much known to controversy nowadays.

The mad caper comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street starts out really well but ends up dragging itself to nowhere. Bordering more on slapstick comedy, it has a nice role by Marcello Mastroianni but overall the film feels dull. Dull is the farthest thing from the Gérard Depardieu starrer Buffet Froid which requires perfect attention to detail as a dream like situations led to the killer becoming the victim, enemies becoming friends and buildings swapping forests (shades of Surrealism & Luis Buñuel's works).


Man Bites Dog: Rating 9/10
Pusher: Rating 6/10
Big deal on Madonna Street: Rating 6.5/10
The Descent: Rating 9.5/10
Element of Crime: Rating 8/10
Buffet Froid: 8.5/10

Overall rating: 47.5 = 7.92


South Africa: Tsotsi, Son of Man

These were 2 late movies that were added to my viewing and honestly, South Africa was not a country that I had planned to cover this time around, but I got lucky here. I had missed seeing Tsotsi on a few occasions so it was only fair that I finally saw it. And Son of Man had a special festival screening in our city and I have to say, I was very impressed. Son of Man is a modern interpretation of Jesus live in the slums and streets of Africa – a time where gangs, religion, politics and corruption reign. It really seems that nothing has changed in the last few thousand years, really? :) Just that we have tv and radio which can transmit news of miracles and tragedies faster than ever before! And guns are readily available to those who need to kill people easily. A very commendable film, not perfect but worth seeing!

Amazingly, the two South African movies stood narrowly beat out the 3 other regions and won this contest. A real surprise indeed for a country whose movies were the last ones to make the cut!


Tsotsi: Rating 8.5/10
Son of Man: Rating 8/10

Overall rating: 8.25

Simply Taiwan!

One Country, 3 directors, 6 movies! A diverse collection ranging from the colorful past to the murky present!!!

Hou Hsiao-hsien

Until a few months ago, I had never heard of this talented director. But after seeing three of his movies in quick succession, I can understand why he has such a huge following around the world! I first cracked the world of Hou Hsiao-hsien with his highly acclaimed beautiful 2005 flick Three Times which illustrated the director’s full control over every frame as every movement on screen was perfectly orchestrated. Yet, I felt unconvinced about the second (1911 segment) of the three shorts in that movie and felt that it could have been better if it had been shot in black and white as opposed to being rich in color. The first 1966 segment was in simple colors (not too bright) and the final 2005 segment was grayish. I could not understand the bright colors in the middle segment and thought having black and white would have been a better bridge between the two other segments. But all my doubts were banished when I saw the director’s earlier work – the visually scrumptious The Flowers of Shanghai . This is because the 1911 segment in Three Times is along the same lines of the colorful brothel love story shown in The Flowers of Shanghai . That same story was touched upon again in the 1911 segment and it had to be in color, otherwise the richness of the story would have been lost. And within the context of Three Times the 1911 segment had to be without dialogues and had to be with text cards. One of the connecting elements 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 needed to be brought in the loop as well and the sure fire way to convey that was to let them read the messages itself. And in the case of the 1911 segment, the audience had to do precisely that, whereas in the other two segments, it is the characters doing the reading.

As far as the story of The Flowers of Shanghai is concerned, it centers around the brothels in 1880’s China. Food, drink, games and love is all that takes place. Games are played, the losers have to drink up, food is served and then after that, 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. Sounds simple but it is much more complicated than that. And each emotion, each feeling is captured perfectly. What more can I say? Only that this is an absolutely stunning visual cinematic feast!

Goodbye South, Goodbye

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 Yakutza movies but this one stands completely on its own. I quite liked it but not as much as the director’s other two movies. 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. Slow, yet never dull. 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.

So overall ratings: Three Times (now updated to 10/10), Flowers of Shanghai (10/10) and Goodbye South, Goodbye (8.5/10)

Tsai Ming-liang

What Time Is It there?

Tick tock. The clock slowly ticks away. Taipei. Paris. What time is it really? Does the time matter? Because what is there to do really? Sell Watches! Wait for things to get better! And wait for the love to return! These things take time, they don’t change overnight. But the expectation that the next hour will be better, that the next day will be different enable the characters to go on. They sit, they wait and they hope. And when they start losing hope, they cling onto something else, something which they feel is better, something which will give them a better chance of happiness. That something might not make sense to an outsider but for the main characters, their lives depend on it. On one side is the boy who sells watches. One day he meets a girl who insists on buying his watch. The girl is leaving for Paris the next day and wants his watch only. She eventually convinces him to sell it to her. After the boy’s father dies, his mother finds it difficult to let go. The boy is afraid of the dark and tries to stay locked up in his room. If he leaves his room, he encounters his mother trying to come up with schemes to welcome the dead father’s spirit back. Meanwhile the girl is lonely in Paris. She longs for home and is relieved when she meets another woman who can speak the same language as her. Meanwhile, the boy is feeling more detached with his life. So he longs for the girl who left for Paris. In hoping to establish a connection with her, he changes the times on all the watches he sells to show Parisian time. In fact, wherever he finds a clock (be it in a hallway or mounted on a building), he tries to switch the time to Paris time (hence the title). He then seeks French movies so as to be closer to her. And his introduction to French cinema starts with 400 Blows . Meanwhile, the girl meets the real life grown up version of the boy from 400 Blows. In a way, sitting on two separate sides of the planet, the two of them connect in a strange way. Different times, but same feeling. The movie moves extremely slowly with long uninterrupted shots of nothingness. But that is exactly the point the movie is trying to make. Nothing happens in these people lives yet they keep waiting for something to happen. The clock on the other hand keeps ticking away.

Rating: 9/10

The Wayward Cloud

A long empty corridor. A woman carries a watermelon across it. Next scene, we see that watermelon cut open in half lying in between a woman’s open legs. A man approaches the watermelon, licks it and ends up achieving penetration of a different kind. The main character is the same who used to sell watches in What Time Is It There but he now acts in porno movies. He meets the returned girl from Paris, who moves into the same apartment block as him. The two of them don’t hook up but continue to admire each other from a distance. Each of them is initially busy trying to beat the heat wave that has covered the city. Water is a scarce resource and the tv news informs the public that it is cheaper to drink watermelon juice as opposed to water because of the abundant supply of watermelons as opposed to water. And this also explains the watermelon motif that keeps reappearing throughout the movie, be it as a song prop or as a sexual tool. The film contains a handful of songs which are very well orchestrated with completely unique props (sexual triggers and even a watermelon beast). The same slow technique as the Ming-liang Tsai’s previous movie is used but the songs lend a different mood to the movie. A bit of comic relief in some cases and in others just a melancholy commentary on the state of things. Overall, I didn’t find this film as interesting as his previous effort but this is a completely unique endeavor with a truly ‘climatic’ ending.

Rating: 8/10

Leon Dai

Twenty Something Taipei

A different shade of Taiwan from all the other movies. On face value, the modern Taipei shown is not as lonely as the other director’s efforts. The capital city is shown to be a vibrant, fast moving metropolitan city complete with drinks, drugs, clubs and liberal sex. Someone hooks up with one person, then another, switches partners and continues. While the fast paced music continues to throb in the background. In between is a sweet budding romance. The characters aren’t unique to Taipei but could easily inhabit Mumbai, New York, London or another major city. And despite the differences this movie has with the above 5 movies, there is a tiny segment which overlaps with Hsiao-hsien Hou’s Three Times . His 2005 segment has a lesbian love story which is clearly found in the middle of Twenty Something Taipei. Now, it may seem like a stretch to try to connect these two separate movies but it goes to show that both directors had a similar source which they worked off and both wanted to show a modern view of their city where a newer generation is growing up.

Rating: 7.5/10 . Not a bad movie. Cliched, yes! But entertaining nonetheless!!