REALITY IN LONG SHOTS: A HOU HSIAO-HSIEN RETROSPECTIVE | Begins Sept 8

Описание: Tickets: www.austinfilm.org/series/reality-in-long-shots-a-hou-hsiao-hsien-retrospective

AFS teams with the Austin Asian American Film Festival to present this selection of works by one of the most important filmmakers in the world today, the Taiwanese writer-director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. This project is made possible by the Ministry of Culture – Taiwan’s Spotlight Taiwan grant. Special thanks to the Taiwan Academy.

THE BOYS FROM FENGKUEI

A group of rebellious teenage boys leave their remote island village for the bustling port city of Kaohsiung, where they contend with scam artists, unrequited love, and the rigors of life on their own. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s breakthrough feature set a number of milestones, including his first collaboration with renowned writer Chu Tien-wen, whose screenplay drew inspiration from Hou’s own adolescence. Developing Hou’s careful, naturalistic approach against the backdrop of Taiwan’s “economic miracle,” THE BOYS FROM FENGKUEI is a seminal work of Taiwanese cinema that confirmed the arrival of a major new talent.

THE TIME TO LIVE AND THE TIME TO DIE

Shot in the rural Taiwanese environs of his youth, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s most directly autobiographical film recounts his experiences as the son of exiles from mainland China. Growing up in the shadow of an ailing, distant father and the even more distant homeland he last saw as an infant, “Ah-ha” (Hou’s childhood nickname) matures into a disgruntled adolescent, confronted by the impending responsibilities of adulthood. Hou cemented his reputation with his early cycle of coming-of-age dramas, and THE TIME TO LIVE AND THE TIME TO DIE is often ranked as the best of the group.

GOODBYE SOUTH, GOODBYE

Low-level hoodlum Kao (Jack Kao, one of Hou’s most faithful collaborators) commutes between the mean streets of Taipei and the quiet towns of southern Taiwan, filling his days with gambling, cooking, and dubious get-rich-quick schemes. He dreams of striking it big with a nightclub in Shanghai, but his lofty aspirations are weighed down by bad luck and a hotheaded protégé (played by musician Lim Giong, who also oversaw the wonderfully eclectic soundtrack). This unusual take on the gangster movie—voted the best film of the ’90s by Cahiers du cinéma—has faint echoes of Scorsese, but Hou’s absurdist and melancholic vision is ultimately all his own.

MILLENNIUM MAMBO

Vicky (Shu Qi, THE ASSASSIN) finds relief in the bright lights and designer drugs of the Taipei club scene, then returns to the cluttered apartment she shares with her abusive, good-for-nothing boyfriend Hao-hao (Tuan Chun-hao). A hard-edged but sensitive gangster (Jack Kao) holds out the possibility of a more lasting escape, but Vicky must first break free of the inertia confining her. With MILLENNIUM MAMBO, Hou Hsiao-hsien kicks off the 21st century as only he can, delivering a reflective, neon-drenched mood piece that captures the excitement and ennui of contemporary urban life.

FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI

Tony Leung Chiu-wai (IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE) stars as a Cantonese civil servant and devoted patron of “flower houses”—the upscale brothels of late 19th-century Shanghai. His affections drift from the possessive, world-weary Crimson (Hada Michiko) to her younger rival Jasmin (Vicky Wei), while the plot branches out to the goings-on at two other houses. Pushing his long-take aesthetic to stunning extremes, Hou Hsiao-hsien uses just 37 shots to envelop viewers in a cloistered, candlelit world gone by, creating one of the most achingly beautiful films ever made.

A CITY OF SADNESS

Hou Hsiao-hsien closed out the ’80s with one of his most acclaimed works, toplined by future superstar Tony Leung Chiu-wai (CHUNGKING EXPRESS). Still undistributed in the U.S., A CITY OF SADNESS was a sensation in Taiwan for its frank depiction of the post-World War II era, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government ended fifty years of Japanese rule and placed the island under a brutal martial-law regime. But for all its ambition, the film remains touchingly intimate, using the story of a single family to explore history through means both formally and narratively audacious. The first Taiwanese movie to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, A CITY OF SADNESS is an unparalleled landmark of Taiwanese and global cinema.