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16 - 29 June 2019: Taipei Story

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Taipei Story
Edward Yang, 1985, 110 min
Mandarin & Hokkien with English subtitles

“Yang’s close friend, master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, delivers a remarkable lead performance as a former Little League baseball star faced with an empty future and painfully nostalgic for his childhood success. Hou’s character is caught in the complex grid of obligatory and accidental relationships traced by Yang against the backdrop of Taipei’s first economic awakening. While the film’s English-language title (assigned by Yang himself) deliberately echoes Ozu, its restrained exploration of urban malaise is better compared to Antonioni. What Taipei Story has in common with both Ozu and Antonioni is a concern for the moral and intellectual lassitude and pervasive disillusionment that gradually takes hold in the wake of an economic boom.” – Harvard Film Archive


Part of our Taipei Stories programme