A light-hearted Taiwanese romance starring Feng Fei Fei that sees Hou dabbling in commercial genre cinema early on in his career—there’s little in the way of depth but it is still moderately entertaining.
Continue reading →Used to be one of Hou’s rarest films, but while it suggests a weaker grasp of his material, it is still worth a shot.
Continue reading →Hou Hsao-Hsien’s coming-of-age drama shows the hard-hitting reality of surviving in 1980s Taiwan, yet resonates as an evocation of a time passed.
Continue reading →The first of Hou’s ‘coming-of-age’ trilogy is a delightful capture of the nostalgic days of childhood.
Continue reading →Hou’s autobiographical film is a potent tearjerker and a vivid portrayal of life lived in the ‘50s and ‘60s in rural Taiwan.
Continue reading →The third film in Hou’s ‘coming-of-age trilogy’ eschews sentiment for a bleak if poetic visual meditation on fate, space and time.
Continue reading →This historical epic about post-WWII Taiwan is one of Hou’s most ambitious and encompassing works, and also his first true masterpiece.
Continue reading →This is Hou’s masterpiece – a mammoth work about tradition and family, astonishingly crafted, and wrapped in the kind of historical fervour that gives it its power.
Continue reading →An astounding achievement and possibly my favourite work by Hou – this severely underrated film is layered, complex and possesses extraordinary cinematic power.
Continue reading →A lesser-known Hou film, but not any less brilliant – this is a gritty, uncompromising look at small-time crime in the backwaters of Taipei.
Eternality Tan 