Synopsis
“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