A former gangster finds himself displaced within the modern society after release from prison in Johnny Chiang’s melancholy neo-noir, Lost in Forest. https://wp.me/p1x9li-iMj

Screening in Chicago April 16 as part of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

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The wholesome small-town values of an ageing hairdresser place her increasingly at odds with her cynical consumerist kids in Fu Tien-Yu's poignant tale of changing times, Day Off. https://wp.me/p1x9li-iM3

Screening in Chicago April 15 as part of Asian Pop-Up Cinema

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Wan and Huey are teenage lovers in a small mining town. After graduating middle school, they decide to go to bustling Taipei to earn money for their families. Wan takes a job at printing factory then later as a motorcycle delivery man while going to night school. Huey works as a seamstress. They befriend with billboard painter and his gang at a movie theater, hang out & drink sometimes. But life is tough and things never go the way you want. Hou's elegy to his adolescent times is full of stunningly beautiful moments - a train ride home, shy Huey taking off her shirt in a spur of the moment, grandpa's firecrackers, shipwrecked Chinese family in the army barracks, watching people fighting fire, drunken dad trying to lift a stone... It feels almost indecent to share these memories of Wan & Huey as intimately & vividly as I watch Dust in the Wind. But like past memories, Hou's treatment of these moments are so fleeting & democratic. Another Hou masterpiece. #houhsiaohsien #taiwanesecinema

Compared w/ Hou's City of Sadness, Good Men, Good Women is a much more complex film, both structurally & thematically. It starts out with a young actress Liang Ching with a troubled past as she prepares the role of Chiang Bi-yu, a real life character in a film version of GMGW, about a group of young Taiwanese idealists going over to the mainland China to join the resistance against Japanese in WWII. The bw version of film-within-film is scattered through out, giving the island nation's tumultuous history. It also loosely connects with the life of Liang in the present time who has been leading rather a decadent life. She is also haunted by the memories of her lover, a low level gangster who was murdered some years ago. There is obviously a larger context in play here - the nation's shameful past needs to be recognized in order to go forward. Complex, asymmetrical & enigmatic, yet richly rewarding, GMGW is the Hou film I was craving for. #houhsiaohsien #taiwanesecinema

Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996) - Hou
#HouHsiaoHsien #taiwan #JackKao #taiwanesecinema

City of Sadness (1989) - Hou
#HouHsiaoHsien #JackKao #TonyLeung #taiwan #taiwanesecinema

Damn. Just gorgeous. With mangled timelines and sporadic and repetitive voiceovers, the film focuses on a beautiful wayward youth Vicky (Shu Qi). She is in a sadomasochistic bind w/controlling Hao Hao, breaking up & going back to him many times. While working as a bar hostess, she meets Jack, an older gangster type who takes her under his wing. Loved the scenes in snowy Hokkaido where Vicky loses herself to her surroundings. Colors, compositions…. Loss for words. #HHH #ShuQi #taiwanesecinema

There's a lot of details in this film that are just gorgeous cinematically- the local movie studio next to the night school & monsoon season provide plenty of great cinematic moments.Yang had a great understanding of using childhood memories and making it universal, that this is not some random violence but each one of us are capable of it, at the end. A Brighter Summer Day is a rich, beautiful filmmaking that needs to be watched and appreciated. #edwardyang #taiwanesecinema

Café Lumière (2003) - Hou
#houhsiaohsien #taiwanesecinema #japan #tadanobuasano #yasujiroozu

Still bound by tradition and loyalty, Lung blows an opportunity partnering with his brother-in-law in Cali. Lung hates all these sinewy old connections in Taipei, but realizes running away is not the solution. You can't run away from who you are. Taipei Story is a terrific film with great characters charting growing pains of 30 somethings in Taipei, but also is very universal. HHH is amazing as Lung, a moody man with a chip on his shoulder. #taiwanesecinema #edwardyang #houhsiaohsien

Wayward Cloud (2005) - Tsai Ming-Liang
#musical #taiwanesecinema #tsaimingliang #leekangsheng

Screened as part of this year's San Diego Asian Film Festival, contemplative documentary Remember Me (金門留念, Hung Chun-hsiu, 2022) https://wp.me/p1x9li-hG7

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