Continue reading →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.
Although its overlong slow-cinema style may alienate some audiences, the filmmakers’ control of mise-en-scene feels assured and reassuring as undocumented migrants face moral questions and exploitation eking out a painful existence in the mountains of Taiwan.
An ambitious but overdrawn affair, Yang’s debut feature attempts to make meaningful non-linear connections across decades of a person’s life, as a woman reconnects with a friend from the past.
Structured around the Chinese wedding, baby shower and funeral, Yang’s final masterpiece dissects the relationships surrounding one extended middle-class family as life’s endless wisdoms grace and elude them.
Yang’s penultimate film could be his bleakest and most pointed attack on the corrupted soul of Taiwanese society—an angry, rough-hewn and surly escapade featuring lowly gangsters, prostitutes, scammers and rich exploiters of the common man.
A narratological and tonal detour from his earlier output, Yang’s biting satire exposes the anxieties and hypocrisies of several young adults living in a modernising Taipei that has conditioned its people to celebrate the transactional and exploitative aspects of work, relationships and life.
Yang’s sweeping masterpiece and deeply affecting picture is one of the greatest films ever made, dissecting 1960s Taiwanese society through the eyes of its youths and street gangs in search of collective identity and individual meaning.
Yang’s complex, metaphysical tale of intersecting narratives continues his fascination with urban relationships—of people and spaces—in this competently-constructed stunner.
Yang’s outstanding second feature is a slow and methodical look at romance and conflict set against the modernisation of Taiwan.
Trials and tribulations beset a Taiwanese family of four in Chung Mong-hong’s intimate and grounded work, one that is blessed with exceptional performances throughout.
Eternality Tan 