Hou Hsiao-Hsien

on another note: how in the hell do you pronounce his name?

(Of the four, A Time to Live and a Time to Die is supposedly the more fully-realized masterpiece.)

http://tinypic.com/27zyap

This isn't the case--I watched "Flowers of Shanghai" tonight & it was incredible (definitely one of the best films I've seen this year).

And it's not slow films either--I watched "Goodbye Dragon Inn" yesterday (possibly the slowest film I've ever seen) and enjoyed it greatly. I guess GSG just didn't work for me for some reason.

good movie though.

http://mnfilmarts.org/m-spiff/2005/

I would like to see this film in a theater--i think I missed some of the self-reflexive impact that a "movie that takes place in a movie theater while you watch it in a movie theater" has.

jay OTM about dragon inn - i really enjoyed it, but felt like i was missing out having to watch it at home. i'm not sure that i can identify why, but i think there's more to it than just the theatre-as-subject, though. maybe how enveloped you're allowed to become in the lengthy takes? i saw what time is it there? on the big screen and it was amazing... but i am sort of loathe to go back and watch some of his earlier films on dvd.

re: kiarostami, i've heard that too, i want to say maybe in the interview on the criterion taste of cherry dvd?

The empty auditorium shot acquires meaning the longer it goes on. I found the last shot of GSG much more gimmicky and opaquely "cute."

Absolutely. It's almost a disappointment when it ends.

Has anyone seen "Last Life in the Universe"? I wanted to rent it last night but I was already over my rental limit. The cast looks good & Christopher Doyle shot it, so it's got to look nice at least.

I had no idea what you guys meant by "precious", but it took me about five minutes into the film before it became crystal clear. It's not as bad as, say, "Garden State", but the convieniences & cute coincidences are annoying.

Back on HHH, has anyone seen "Millenium Mambo"? I'd never heard of it, but saw it listed in the Palm Pictures catalog & then found it on Amazon for $6.98. If I get one thumbs up from someone here, I'm buying it.

There was talk of the heavy debt to Ozu (who I'm not familiar with) but I definitely want to see it again.

i guess i would like to see his other films so i can test this.

Armond nailed Flight of the Red Balloon for me, I'm afraid (except he liked Binoche more):

http://www.nypress.com/21/14/film/ArmondWhite2.cfm

I've really been underwhelmed post-Flowers of Shanghai, save for the 'silent' chapter of 3x.

Godfrey Cheshire, whelmed:

Hou is a genius, it is said; therefore every film of his is a work of art. In this case, though I'm a longtime admirer and defender of the director, I must beg to differ. Hou's latest strikes me as a trifle, more perplexing than interesting, with inherent problems that are bound up with the fact that it's the first movie he has made outside of Asia....

So why would he go off to France and make a Juliette Binoche movie? There are two primary reasons, I think, and neither is particularly salutary....

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A259868

Pokey in spots, and Binoche's dye job makes her look like she's auditioning to play Courtney Love, but I rather loved this, especially since the original film is oh-so-precious. Rewatching certain scenes between the three main characters in Binoche's apartments, I was struck by how wittily Hou pans subtly between the child and the adults; it's like Janes' What Maisie Knew -- this child barely cognizant of what these confused adults are up to; yet there's enough distance between his perceptions and ours that the two women's interactions are regarded quizzically, affectionately.

i think one reason i love slow movies is that i sometimes something in the movie will send off on a 5 minute day dream and i wont have really missed anything plot wise. i kind of like it when a movie does not demand my attention.
― ryan (ryan), Monday, 21 March 2005 01:45 (5 years ago)

neglected slow cinema wisdom

hsh is super great

hhh :/

from his 00s stuff, millenium mambo was amazing (unjustly neglected), coffee time was very good and red balloon wd probably have been completely insufferable if entrusted to anyone else

http://stargamer1138.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/triple-h-7.jpg

red balloon playing here in two days - good or just not completely insufferable?

dyao successfully triangulates the asian minimalism / dixie proletkult demographics ^^

anything by hou is worth seeing, he is that great

red balloon is a rly weak idea for a movie but he does his best

"anything by hou is worth seeing, he is that great"

otm

City Of Sadness and The Puppetmaster are so perrfect.

juliette binoche is also wonderful in red balloon, but i agree the movie is really weak -- my fave hou would be a time to live and a time to die -- best $5 i ever spent on a chinatown dvd

am i alone in preferring his later/'urban' films? i'm going to queue up daughter of the nile, next; idk whether it's just that I don't have the same appetite for historical films but I think I 'like' the 2000s stuff more, whereas I more 'admire' what I've seen of the earlier, bigger-deal films (puppetmaster, dust in the wind).

& yeah I know I probably oughtta get around to CoS/FoS before I start this kind of conversation

The Puppetmaster is a real paint-drying film for me; I have no idea how I stayed awake in atheater in the '90s. Partly to do with my hating most puppetry from any culture?

Flowers of Shanghai is a much tougher watch at home too (esp on a crappy tape), but still easily my fave of his.

yeah i found the puppetmaster drier than most seemed to. & the jacket said HOU-LARIOUS!, which didn't help. the puppetry = some of the best parts, though!

i've still never caught flowers of shanghai or city of sadness - i had the impression that they were both super-long, where as only one is, i think. but a cinema viewing would be nice.

Puppetry is usually the best part of almost any movie it's in. The 400 Blows is one of the only exceptions I can even think of atm.

I'm in the FOS/GSG camp.

i really wanted to love city of sadness but found it far too long, and not meaty enough. i did really like a time to live and die (saw it twice, and liked it much better 2nd time round, maybe i need to do that with all his films) but this i just found dreary. took me about an hour to get into its rhythm, but found it impossible to really navigate all the characters when i did. maybe its this film, or maybe its just him, but his style can be too delicate and slight. beautiful and poetic, sure, but i wanted more than that - everything was as if it was rendered in miniature, but it makes it hard to get any sense of an emotional arc. its all just played at one pitch almost. found it easy to like particular scenes, but difficult to get a handle on the bigger picture. did love the idea of rendering every letter thats read out on the screen though - that was a lovely touch. a time to live somehow seemed better as his simple style suited the relatively simple story (though it was still epic in scope).

Was there too. There was this tension in the film between the telling of the history and the telling of that family's history that seemed unresolved by Hou. When the deaf man and his wife-to-be start conversing independently of the rest of the family -- who are talking about the political situation, big boy stuff -- and the two talk instead about their lives and the music playing you are clearly seeing what Hou is more interested in. Or at least the terrain he feels more comfortable in, because the bigger picture details did get lost over time. He never found any equilibrium here.

Its a film I'd watch again someday - it was interesting to depict such a turbulent time for a nation in such a non-epic manner.

One other thing I'd remark on is how 80s those keyboard stabs sounded to me. You can so date the movie through that, its how I amuse myself.

i found myself stuck between frustration that a subject like this DID deserve the big epic treatment and trying to see the reason for why hou wouldnt take that approach. neither was particularly satisfying. his small-detail minutiae focus can be riveting (eg a time to live...), it can also feel like a safe option. avoiding obvious big drama might seem brave or clever but it also just seems like an easy way out, and one more about preserving auteur style over what the material is desperately crying out for. if there were plenty of other epics already telling this story, i might think a small-focus movie like this to be fine, but as there arent loads about the subject, it seemed like a missed opportunity.

ha - i loved the 80s music. it was actually one of the easiest things to like about the film. he has a good ear for music.... though there WAS something rather 80s-arthouse about the film as a whole (same dated feel i get from watching something like the double life of veronique these days)

i found myself stuck between frustration that a subject like this DID deserve the big epic treatment and trying to see the reason for why hou wouldnt take that approach.

Well he is more interested in the interior life - the life of family houses and rooms, the life of a deaf mute - than what is happening more widely. Thinking more again you see that table where the father is eating, and the film pretty much ends with that scene of the eldest surviving the turbulent times. There he is, eating...Somewhat analogous to having the grandmother die at the end of A Time to Live..., the eldest outliving her son/daughter (can't remember which side she is on).

might double feature cute girl and the puppetmaster next weekend, haven't seen either.

There's been talk in All Purpose NYC ILX Film Snob Thread

I'm watching Good Men, Good Women for the first time. Its fucking w/space and time is unexpected!

brand new print of Flowers of Shanghai on the big screen in Queens last night, stunning reds and golds, glow from the gas lamps too. This retro will tour to Berkeley and presumably elsewhere.

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-also-like-life-the-films-of-hou-hsiao-hsien

Was it sold out?

close if not

Looked sold out tonight too, for supposedly the sole extant subtitled print of the puppetmaster

Yesterday I saw A Summer at Grandpa's (1984), which is ultimately a pretty sobering portrait of two sibs (aged ten and six, approximately) learning a lot about adults. It's not much like Meatballs even though there are pants-wetting and hemorrhoid scenes.

flowers is the only movie i've ever felt the need to watch twice in a row (well, with a night's sleep in between viewings).

Checked the "Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai" out from the library; ordered DVD copy of "Flowers" to rewatch--I will understand this movie eventually.

Saw "Three Times" on Sunday--wasn't as impressive as the first two ("Flowers" & "Puppetmaster").

Gonna miss "Millennium Mambo" this Friday as have tix for the Replacements . . . not too upset as I hear it is similar to the last of the Three Times. Ordered it on Netflix though to try and keep up with the programming.

I really liked Millenium Mambo. One of his best of the post-Flowers ones, imo. There are some really beautiful pictures of snow...

I'm so jealous of this retro.

wb v. plain

I'm really enjoying reading the novel that "Flowers" was based on--but its making me want to stay inside reading all day as the rain falls outside.

Question: were they smoking some low grade opium in those days, or was everyone just an addict? In the book they have some wine with lunch, then smoke some opium to relax, then take a nap before arranging a drinking party. Nice life!

You know, I forgot until I looked at the credits of Flowers that that's Tony Leung in the lead. (Hair.)

David Bordwell on "cheerful staging" in the early films:

http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/figures_intro.php?ss=4

this thread is reminded me i need to rewatch yang's "the terrorizers" (preferably alone as my ex's boredom ruined the first viewing)

remindING*

i'll come over next year to watch it :)

actually i think dayo just told me he bought The Terrorizers

i'd be into the idea of a static cinema marathon: the terrorizers, jeanne dielman, kiarostami, etc

i am inviting myself to this party

this ... slumber party

The Boys from Fengkuei is a formidable entry in the I Vitelloni genre.

Otm. This scene has been in my mind since I saw it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2jvVT-xYRs

Esp. the second shot.

Yep, that was definitely the best scene of the movie.

hmmm, i wouldn't go that far. Were you there Sunday?

Frederik, do these films circulate in Europe? Because I probably last saw The Boys 20-25 years ago until this weekend, and I bet it hasn't been possible to see it on more than 2-3 other occasions in NYC in that time.

Hoberman (who mentions that the retro will go to Cambridge, Berkeley, Washington, D.C., Rochester, Toronto, Vancouver, Houston, and Chicago):

When I interviewed Hou many years ago in Tapei we met at his preferred spot, a Japanese style teahouse—a marked contrast to the “Chicago-style” burger joint chosen by Hou’s leading contemporary Edward Yang. Unlike the gregarious Yang, whose masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day (1991) concerns Taiwan’s “American” period, immersed in high school turf wars and imported Elvis worship, Hou was reserved and modest, preferring to speak through a translator although he clearly understood English. He disliked travel, he told me, and was critical of Taiwanese investors who, rather than support Taiwanese films, preferred to put their money in Hong Kong or mainland productions: “It’s typical. People don’t value their roots here.” Rather than talk movies, he preferred to explain the history of Cold War Taiwan.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/19/taiwan-master-timekeeper-hou-hsiao-hsien/

I don't really know if it circulates in Europe, I'd guess there would be french copies. I can't figure out if any of his films ever got a Danish premiere (four are mentioned in the database, but without premiere-dates and number of tickets sold. Don't know what that means) He is way more obscure than he should be, and I'd love for this retrospective to come to Copenhagen.

There was a retrospective in 2007, apparantly. Time for one more!

Liked the piece quite a bit:

In a certain sense, Hou is an artist out of time—a reminder of our belatedness more than his. When Flight of the Red Balloon (2007) opened here in 2008, I began my Village Voice review with the unprovable assertion that if the director were French, he’d be far more appreciated. Flight of the Red Balloon was in a way a French movie, shot in Paris (it even played at the Paris Theater in New York) but I should have written, “if Hou were French and we were still living in 1974.” His presence signifies the end of a particular era in film culture that ended long ago.

Even in the mid-70s 'timekeeper' stuff was getting made in France but how appreciated was it really?

More valuable is how that moment has lingered on and taken further by others in different ways, that includes Hou.

Saw the '83 omnibus film The Sandwich Man, intro by Jonathan Rosenbaum (who reminisced about singing drunken Beatles karaoke with Hou in '91). Hou's title segment was likely the best-made -- apparently a transitional work from the three pop comedies he'd made -- but in a way the other two episodes were more socially acute, the second beginning essentially as comedy and sliding into tragedy, the third vice-versa, and taking as their respective themes the role of the Japanese and American presence in Taiwan.

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=houhsiaohsien&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=

Can't wait.

i want to delve into that season but am wary of which to see. i wasnt into city of sadness but did like a time to live a lot (on second viewing at least)...

am wondering what those early genre movies of his are like.

see as much as you can imo!, just because it's all enlightening, & seeing the development of his style adds a lot to the films you're watching & the films you've seen. but probably if you want to be cost effective see everything after (/inc.) the boys from fengkuei, which is the first genre pic to really mirror his later kinda multi-generational semi-slo-mo dynasty style. actually seeing (& hearing, really great scores & fx throughout) taiwan genre cinema from the '80s is just super interesting anyway i think.

the genre movies are like taiwanese porky's btw

Yeah its gonna be interesting to see some genre work as well as things like Puppetmaster.

does the assassin have a uk release date? i want to see that more than the old ones tbh.

no it doesn't / go see the old ones

i want to see that more than the old ones tbh.

What are the BFI doing showing us old films huh?

i think HHH is the kind of director whose films you have to watch twice. i didnt get a time to live and time to die until the second time. i really liked the boys from fengkui and summer at grandpas house, though at times im not totally sure why - theres a real delicacy in SAGH, but i love how that seemingly idyllic surface is broken up by these violent/domestic disruptions, but without it being jarring. HHH isnt trying to shock, or be 'disruptive' to the mood, he somehow makes it seem totally level (which occasionally i think might be his flaw). is dust in the wind worth seeing?

Dust in the Wind is the only one I've seen twice, and yeah, it's definitely worth seeing. It's very much life as it happens, and I think the first of his films where the characters reach some kind of maturity. I'm still having trouble figuring out what happens and who is related to who, but some of it is edged in my memory.

any supporters of daughters of the nile? i want to see that one more than dust as it sounds a bit more urban in setting, but might just do both, as neither are on dvd.

Dust in the Wind is better, but they're pretty much all good. Watch them both, definitely.

I loved City Of Sadness. It was long but had a really strong sense of period authenticity and some subtle performances and Flowers Of Shanghai was also beautiful as well. I need to watch A Time to Live ... next.

i didnt get a time to live and time to die until the second time.

What didn't you get the first time that was now clear?

Its a beautiful film and fearless about confronting the grubby business of death in the family. As w/many things, it grows the more you spend time with it, but I loved it on my only viewing.

City of Sadness available in a decent print on YouTube btw

Seeing Puppetmaster this Sunday #excited

Jealous! This HHH season is pretty much the first time in about 8 years I've wished I still lived in London.

Didn't know Cit of Sad was on Ytube, so thanks for that Alfred - wonder if there's anything else by him up there (sooo difficult to see his earlier movies on any form of home viewing format)

If you are willing to get into the world of torrents a lot of his early stuff is downloadable on K4T.

Thanks xelab - Ilxor Jed once very kindly sent me a Karagarga invite, but I am absolutely useless at computer type stuff and the whole world of torrents totally befuddles me.

Puppetmaster on Sunday was one heck of an event. I think City of Sadness is pretty good but I found the plot convuluted. must revisit. Puppetmaster allowed Hou to tell a similar story - basically that of Taiwan being a pawn in a game between China and Japan for fifty years - but from a very unlikely POV.

Love the shots of puppet plays and Chinese Opera, how the (for the Western audience watching) what you'd term as Li's collaration with the Japanese is actually not discussed at all (its clear he had to eat and had a family to take care of), how his artistry is sublimated to going in from one job to another, via one company to another. It seems he learns a craft, and not much more - after getting into it via family connections and needing something else after getting in trouble at school. It is mysterious how he comes to be revered among all the other puppeteers - or at least that is partly what it looks like. My mind was running afterwards that he was the ONLY puppeteer that survived war at all, like he was the only reminder that culture existed, the only book that escaped the burning.

Lotsa great shots - Hou is p/distinct, sorta following on from Ozu but only one shot really reminds you of him: in the house where a family member is getting drunk in the foreground (he has been kicked from the army) and is kicking off while Li and family eat on the table in the adjacent room in the background, one level down so you can see their upper bodies, camera nearer to the floor. Then there are Hou only ticks - in another early introductory scene you have the family around the dining room table - three generations around and talking together, celebrating the arrival of another member, talking and making noise.

The way he tells it is nicely done: Li's voice narrates a scene or two (not the event dramatized in his narration) - then Hou gets him on camera to tell a story then finally he tells a story that is then re-enacted in the next shot. All the while Li is rambling like crazy, he can be v funny and possibly unreliable (using frogs to cure a fever), but possibly too full of himself - must've been a job to edit.

so i saw good women good men, and goodbye south - i think the latter might be my favourite of all his films, save for time to live, time to die. though i know its prob the most different, and perhaps least hsien-like of all his films in some ways. reminded me more of tsai ming liang and even wong kar wai actually, which might be why i liked it. i think his delicate style of filmmaking in general might just not be for me, i find it too... mannered? though im still going to check out his later films on dvd.

Dust In The Wind is another brilliant one. He does social realism better than any director I have ever seen, as in the scenes where people are talking/eating/drinking/smoking that are always interesting and driving the narrative without any crude expositionory shit. That old skinny dude who plays grandpa and is also in City Of Sadness is amazing and his scenes don't even resemble acting - more like projecting his own hard lived life to the camera, he lights up every scene, even where he is talking about ginseng and potatoes at the end.

I saw that too. can I confirm here whether he repeats those ginseng and potatoes remarks twice? Interpret it as the onset of dementia.

The scene where the father and son are having a meal before he sets off for the army and where the father talks about how generations of his family have been unlucky in getting themselves an education was moving as hell.

Man alive Three Times was killer - what a magical Sun afternoon screening. This has turned out to be one of BFI's best seasons in at least 2-3 years.

Still one week left, hoping to catch one more this coming weekend.

The Assassin isn't first tier Hou: if you walk in after the opening titles, you'll have no idea who's doing what to whom. Lovely costumes.

feel like that's both a bizarre standard to expose a film to - if you miss some of it, it won't make sense - & one generally not meaningfully applicable to a hou film, or at least one in this mode. it's absolutely first-tier hou, i think.

All I meant was that nothing in the story or images indicates the tensions between the assassin and the governor. Hou has never been much good at plot, but his compositions and editing were more than enough. Here there are many dead spots between the swordplay seuences.

i.e. without the opening titles you're at sea.

have you seen a hou film before?

You think that film makers should consider people who missed the beginning? 😳

I think posters should read what I wrote.

i am In Pain reading these posts

What you see in the film is what happened; there’s no CGI, it’s all natural and exactly as it happened. This was shot in Hubei province in Mainland China, in an area called Shennongjia, which is about 2,700 meters above sea level. So it’s very high up and it was a very humid day, so there were cloud after cloud just coming in waves through the mountain and the valley. So honestly, it didn’t take us very long at all to shoot the scene; it was just happening like that. So we just showed up and shot it. Had it not been a very humid day without clouds, I may have still been able to utilize it. It just so happens there were clouds, it was humid, and so it was the kind of scene we ended up utilizing for the film.

http://filmmakermagazine.com/96104-we-just-did-long-takes-every-time-hou-hsiao-hsien-on-the-assassin/

Hou has never been much good at plot

ok cool.

like Beckett, say

like James

It's very much worth watching, and still damn impressive, but I couldn't figure out who was doing what to whom, which in most Hou movies isn't a problem but the wry ending requires understanding what just happened. I'm gonna watch it again tonight or tomorrow.

turn off the vacuum cleaner this time.

Saw it in the theater! I felt most sorry for a tour bus full of Taiwanese tourists tangentially acquainted with Hou who hurried excitedly into the theater and when the lights went up a hundred minutes later looked like soccer balls had hit them in the gut.

I think posters should read what I wrote.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 26, 2015 1:32 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read it and my response was flippant/stupid and I've really enjoyed your writing at times in spite of the fact that you've stated in that past you're not a particularly vigilant viewer. I mean you've been on record as being on the treadmill or doing housework or whatever else while you views films and I honestly don't know how that is a useful position for a critic. I dare say the new hou is confusing but criticising it for being confusing if you missed the credits is stupid.

ditto jed re: the general quality of alfred's posts, this tragically now something i can only wince, remembering, confronted with his terrible descent into philistinism. anyway i'm joking & i didn't mean to post-&-run whenever it was but just to clarify-

All I meant was that nothing in the story or images indicates the tensions between the assassin and the governor. Hou has never been much good at plot, but his compositions and editing were more than enough. Here there are many dead spots between the swordplay seuences.

just leaving the plot thing aside because: i can't, it's wild to me to read something dismissive of dead spots in this, or really for the knife fights to be invoked as if they were in some entirely separate, jarring tonal register (i saw a bunch of hou in quick succession during the retro, & so get everything mixed up, but the fights in this reminded me of a kind of believably-clumsy chase-&-fight scene, shot at a distance, & half-obscured by the long grass of a field, in one of the older films -- possibly dust in the wind?). i think maybe most perfectly in cafe lumiere hou manages to create this incredibly balanced micro-climate of just mood & feeling, akin to what other films control by periodically drip-feeding events & revelations, tension accumulated & diffused, with hou this kind of thing all depending on just like utterly transparent, lighter-than-air vibrations in scenes. & in this it just felt so incredibly well judged; there was an especially intense scene, after the assassin is wounded, when her cuts are being treated, in the room with the other wounded man, & it's this judicious, sparing close-up & the most direct confrontation we have with her just fierce concentration, like it's such an restrained & expressive performance & although it isn't explicit it's a real kind of direct shot. & then the next few minutes of the film are these light dance scenes, the ones before the woman collapses against the pillar, the lightness of this seeming exactly proportionate to the heaviness of the preceding scene, like the film is air currents circling & replacing one another. i really think the parts of the film that are maybe susceptible to confusion - like sure i could not draw a family tree or whatever - just kind of aren't important to the film that this is, & are aligned with the assassin's similar detachment from such matters.

also apropos of nothing another really beautiful thing, seeing this, & having seen stuff relatively recently in the retro, was just the joy of seeing new variations on a few kinda signature shots he uses, like the scene of the homestead the assassin quietly walks through, or some of the architectural shots.

ps 龜 did you see this yet, it's mark lee ping bin

I dare say the new hou is confusing but criticising it for being confusing if you missed the credits is stupid.

I saw the film in a theater and was there for every second; it was my first Hou in a theater, and because The Flowers of Shanghai and Cafe Lumiere are among my favorite films ("i think maybe most perfectly in cafe lumiere hou manages to create this incredibly balanced micro-climate of just mood & feeling, akin to what other films control by periodically drip-feeding events & revelations, tension accumulated & diffused, with hou this kind of thing all depending on just like utterly transparent, lighter-than-air vibrations in scenes" -- otm exactly) of their respective decades I dug in for more goodies. Without the benefit of the title card and the opening scene, it's impossible to figure out that, say, the governor and the assassin are related; I should think these facts should be obvious from subsequent scenes. I'm not sure why it's so offensive to admit I preferred other Hou films?

I don't really polish shoes or whatever while watching screeners -- I said it to irritate Morbs, who considers it a distraction if you take notes during a movie.

shot at a distance, & half-obscured by the long grass of a field

I thought this was Hou's shrewdest decision

Haven't seen any of his other movies but I'm seeing The Assassin tonight, and I'm psyched.

Wow was this ever hard to follow, and the opening title didn't help at all with trying to figure out and track the intertwined familial + political relationships between everybody. The whole time I was trying to figure out whether it mattered or not, and we spent the rest of the night trying to piece everything together. Very pretty though.

LOL @ this:

Without the benefit of the title card and the opening scene, it's impossible to figure out that, say, the governor and the assassin are related; I should think these facts should be obvious from subsequent scenes. I'm not sure why it's so offensive to admit I preferred other Hou films?

You are not offending anyone at all. There is another film I've heard about that has a lot of stuff around assassins and people like that, something to do with an agent called James Bond. Looked at a news item on it and the plot might be easier for you, maybe you ought to try that instead.

Just trying to help.

It might be easier for you to fuck off. No reason for the attitude, hoss. You're acting as if I haven't commented in this thread many times over the years. Plus, I watched it a second time and quite loved it.

Btw every single person I talked to that night had no idea what was going on in terms of plot, who was who, characters appearing & disappearing, etc.

Still not sure if the woman in the mask was another assassin sent by the nun or a metaphor.

It might be easier for you to fuck off

I am not sure why that was so offensive? Can you help?

zzzzzz

Off to do some ironing now. brb.

be sure to get the wrinkles out of your brain

Getting the wrinkles out of the fridge today.

ithout the benefit of the title card and the opening scene, it's impossible to figure out that, say, the governor and the assassin are related

wasn't true at all btw

It wasn't not true at all either.

What has or is about to happen?

I've seen critics far more intelligent than I call this his most perplexing movie. I don't think Alfred is alone on his flags.

his most perplexing movie

that would be the puppetmaster

all you really need to know is that the assassin and the person she's assigned to kill are related. that's the driver!

you aren't even told that in the titlecard. it's repeated throughout the first half!

Is The Puppetmaster perplexing? I was following it ok..

The one that I felt was pretty convuluted was City of Sadness but there is so much else to Hou there are other things to follow if you are weighed down by narrative.

i saw a really bad 35mm print (touted as one of the last in existence) so maybe that was why

and yeah exactly, i think with hou so rarely is the payoff in the narrative denoument

i still think most critics were sold on this as being a sort of spiritial sequel to crouching tiger i.e. high class wuxia with lots of fights

the critical response has been excellent though; I think the poor suckers were the theater owners.

i saw a really bad 35mm print (touted as one of the last in existence)

I saw a rough print, someone needs to restore this - one of the best screenings this year.

http://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2015/10/talks-legendary-filmmaker-hou-hsiao-hsien-his-latest-film-assassin

Assassin Blu/DVD tomorrow

Watched it yesterday - thought the knife fights had that clean clinical look of scenes from Kobayashi's Harakiri.

Seeing it tonight, excited. GFT are doing it justice by showing it on their smallest screen :-(

Its great - had to wait 3/4 months for it.

Now to decide where it places on the best films of 2015 ballot. (I suppose ppl will vote for this as a 2015 film so if I'll join in)

I won't get to see it until may/june, so it'll wait til next years ballot for me :(

Rewatched Flowers of Shanghai yesterday afternoon. The last scene killed me.

I won't get to see it until may/june, so it'll wait til next years ballot for me :(

― Frederik B, Monday, 25 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL how come? You watch everything :-)

Danish release dates. It's incredible that it even gets released here, and I'm giving major kudos to the distributors, but they keep it until june, out of the prolonged oscar-season. Amour Fou, for instance, suffered the same fate. But Amour Fou I managed to see at both Gothenburg at CPH:PIX before, but it isn't at Gothenburg, and PIX is moving to the fall this year. So no luck at all, I have to wait until june. :(

And thanks :) But I don't watch everything, not at all. I'm just lucky enough to live within distance of a bunch of festivals, and spend my vacations that way. Cannes films are pretty much always delayed for me.

I'd get a DVD but its not the same - watched at the biggest screen at the NFT

Well, yeah, I could probably do that. But I know I'll see it this summer, probably a couple of times, so I might prioritize all the other stuff I want to see.

Needless to say this was ravishing, and demands to be seen on a big screen.

Really felt like there was a lot of self-identification between Hou and the Assassin - both of them creep up on things (narrative/victims) and both of them refuse the expected or demanded (exposition/the killing stroke). Seemed very significant that a lot of the action moments took place just off-screen, or are seen from a distance - the film simultaneously polishes myth and views it sideways.

Scrolled up and the talk upthread re: plot gets funnier.

seeing it tonight. half wary, half excited. the interviews he has given about the film make me go for the former. like 'i just cut out everything that might tell you anything just for the hell of it'.

i watched this not caring about the plot beyond the basics. i gave up trying to follow it. but i found this enjoyable. and surprisingly light in how it feels as i was expecting it to be austere and heavy going. but it was sort of mythic and almost fairy tale-like. but i still didnt pay much attention to the narrative - it seemed inconsequential and pointless task. but also as i read so much about how ravishing it was to look at. which is actually where i found the film a let down. it looks like HD TV really. compositionally, i think the appeal was more to do with the set design than the cinematography, which seemed adequate but lacking in his usual control/deliberation. the crystalline, ultra high def images lacked anything interesting texturally. it looked like a quality TV mini series, the black and white sequence at the start even more so. a lot of the fights were presented as awkwardly as the grandmaster, though i appreciate the attempt to do something new there. its enigmatic, enjoyably light-footed, and strangely intriguing, but something i would file as a modest, low budget, late period addition to someones filmography rather than one of the great films of recent memory. i cant help thinking a lot of the praise poured onto it is a kind of compensation for his older/better films not being shown/known more.

Best bit was the panning revealing and hiding again the assassin listening through the curtains. I almost fell asleep several times but in sort of a nice way and wasn't helped by having to travel across to Edinburgh and back before work having missed it at the GFT last week.

it looks like HD TV really.

The gap between film and TV look has narrowed considerably over the last 15 years. Hou has probably gone with the times, or the tech. Its hard to know how well it might look compared as the older films (as I saw in the BFI retro) aren't in as good a condition. But for what it is I think decisions as to what is shot (and what is kept out too), angles of light etc. and mixed shooting settings - not only B&W but also that scene where the image is made grainier. That was all well-handled. I think the guy is in control of his materials.

The appeal - well you'd expect a Hou film to be well shot (its done in a way you don't like), to have as few a cliche's as poss (compared to other wuxia). Its just a very good film that had an award - which is wider recognition for a director that is pretty much well-known already in art house circles. I wouldn't call it overcompensation. Its top 10 stuff in most years.

youre right about the decreased gap between film and tv. but it made me think a bit in terms of the look of something like raul ruiz' mysteries of lisbon. the production values felt more tv something like say, house of flying daggers. i kept thinking someone should tap HHH to do a long form series, like a wuxia twin peaks. im surprised that it was shot on 35mm (suppose it shows that you can make film look like digital tv and vice versa). but there was def something slight about this compared to what else ive seen of his - it def had that stillness, and moments of opaqueness, but it didnt seem to come with as much meaning. that might come if i watch it again maybe, not sure.

im glad hes getting accolades. obv if youre 'into film', you will prob know of him, but hes not nearly as famous as other east asian auteurs.

i think im thinking texturally, or in terms of the grain, as well as attention to lighting, and atmosphere, etc.

compare this still from city of sadness to the assassin -

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/City-of-Sadness-400.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5f7BVKfXipQ/Vciw4l4gJDI/AAAAAAAE8qc/x3ru511ewII/s1600/assassin7.jpg

Anybody seen the wuxia tv shows? I seen some trailers and was amazed because the movie-like quality of them seems far beyond even American tv shows.

I haven't seen Mysteries of Lisbon but he is so diff to HHH. 'TV production values' vs film - again, I wonder how much of a gap there is in the first place between either of them.

From the two screenshots I take your point but City of Sadness does, iirc, evoke a very different mood in its intentions and its a very different story - which I think why at least trying to follow some of the story's strands (and I didn't follow all of them) might be worthwhile.

It's posit StillAdvance means that MOL has the leisurely pace of, say, Berlin Alexanderplatz.

posit = possible

i only mentioned MOL as it was also a tv project IIRC but i think the thing with the assassin is that the image is very naked. or made to seem very naked (ive read some reviews since seeing it comment on it being like a painting come to life but i would say its more just like a digital photograph come to life, which im not sure really suits it as its meant to be a period piece). made me think of inland empire actually. i know the lighting was all natural, but idk, i like a bit of artifice, so maybe its just personal preference (i feel a bit like QT complaining about digital projection being TV, but i think its about the choices made in the shooting and the lighting, not the projection).

i still need to watch berlin alexanderplatz.

its more just like a digital photograph come to life, which im not sure really suits it as its meant to be a period piece

Period piece needn't mean you sould exclude digital.

Some of the colours felt oversaturated.

I think this film's status as a 'period film' is quite complex (especially when there are fantasy elements in play) - it has the feel of a retold childhood fable, a remembrance of a story rather than the story itself, and so the brightness of the colours seems an appropriate way of expressing memory, and wonderment.

So, this is a masterpiece! Reminded me a lot of Amour Fou in it's depiction of a rotten, codified, millieu. Also, reading up on the history behind it, the whole thin is based on fact, it seems. It's really not that complicated.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2016/06/06/hou-hsiao-hsien-film-culture-finally-comes-through/

Daughter of the Nile has a 30th anniversary 4K restoration opening in NY this week

https://quadcinema.com/film/daughter-of-the-nile/

watched tai pei story last week; every shot is gorgeous

I really liked The Puppetmaster. It was definitely made more interesting for me by the mixing of casual narration in voice-over and interview scenes with the historical storytelling. The “almost like life” puppet show scenes and opera scenes were also mesmerizing. Didn’t think the narrative was confusing at all (unlike The Assassin). Can relate to what was said above about his films being delicate/miniaturized, the preference for mid- and long-range shots really add emotional distance to the events of the stories

enjoyed reading this thread

I used the search function to find this thread, was disappointed to realize I posted this to ILF. surprising to me that there's no Hou Hsiao-Hsien thread on ILE

I've seen The Assassin twice now, I'm still not sure I really understand it, but it is a beautiful film

Only saw the one time when it came out but would like to see again. Where is it streaming? Only thing I see available is Daughter of the Nile on Kanopy. Actually just watched Three Times about a week ago on Mubi and it was incredible.

Seems like I missed whole Metrograph retro and don’t think I can get there tomorrow for the last day.

I want to see Three Times again, I remember liking it the first time, especially the 1966 sequence. haven't seen Daughter of the Nile yet. The Assassin is available on netflix dvd. the quality of the dvd I rented this time was superior (I thought) to that I saw initially

I know dvds are not something most people consider watching today, but without them, at least for the moment, I think viewers are missing out on a lot of great classic films

Yeah, I know I am.

The Assassin seems like a very different film to me this time. wondering what it will feel like again in 5 years

I can recommend googling the names of characters in The Assassin. Some of them are historical characters, whose stories don't end there.

Figuring out subs for French restoration of the 'HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien' documentary. Love this segement: pic.twitter.com/bd5f13eZOk

— mmcc (@mattmccrac) August 17, 2022

Having completed the subtitle project and working now on packaging them and the video together properly, please enjoy Hou Hsiao-hsien's magnificent singing at KTV.

"Cheers friends, let it all out!"https://t.co/6rqqjCGJuc pic.twitter.com/tBrtsxr2LM

— mmcc (@mattmccrac) August 2, 2023

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/hou-hsiao-hsien-taiwan-director-retirement-1235768092/

that's a loss but he seems to be doing what's best for his health and i hope he has a long happy retirement

Hope this sad news inspires a push to finally get decent physical media editions of things like Puppetmaster and City of Sadness out there.

The Assassin was a hell of a film to go out on.

https://www.taiwanplus.com/shows/culture/between-the-tides-taiwans-new-wave-classics-and-beyond

dust in the wind (and other non-HHH classics) available for streaming here

"Before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he had often shared with us that his love for films has become purer."

Thank you so much for your films, Hou.