A fantastic achievement as a temporal commentary on Taiwan’s historical sacrifices and the emptiness of present freedoms, this underrated third film in Hou’s “historical” trilogy is layered, complex and possesses extraordinary cinematic power.

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.

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.

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.

The first of Hou’s ‘coming-of-age’ trilogy is a delightful capture of the nostalgic days of childhood.

Hou’s autobiographical film is a potent tearjerker and a vivid portrayal of life lived in the ‘50s and ‘60s in rural Taiwan.

The third film in Hou’s ‘coming-of-age trilogy’ eschews sentiment for a bleak if poetic visual meditation on fate, space and time.

This historical epic about post-WWII Taiwan is one of Hou’s most ambitious and encompassing works, and also his first true masterpiece.

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.