Hou Hsiao-Hsien @ 75: The Studio Films (1980-1982)

by Cláudio Alves

His films are poems, lyrical examinations of the mundane that live in the moment but look backward to a past out of reach but still tangible. Master shots are his preference, whether standing still through mnemonic patterns or roving in idyll movement. Form and emotion are synonyms in this cinematic imagination, indissociable ideas that repudiate traditional storytelling norms. Indeed, many of his works are constructed from the transitory passages other filmmakers leave on the cutting room floor.

For these reasons and more, I have long loved the cinema of Hou Hsiao-Hsien. So, to celebrate his 75th birthday, I ask you, dear reader, to join me on a trip down memory lane, a multi-part odyssey through this master of cinema's filmography…

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Review: Taiwan’s Oscar Submission "A Sun"

By: Patrick Gratton

They say that time is the eternal healer. It picks you up from your bootstraps and licks your wounds. Time is also the eternal grim reaper. It has the power to darken one’s heart, hope and inhibitions.  Chung Mong-Hong’s A Sun, the big winner at last year’s Golden Horse Awards and Taiwan's submission for the 93rd Oscars, is a 150+ minute meditational piece on the effects of time and its role in expanding and tightening the human spirit. 

For a film with such a daunting running time, A Sun begins with a bang! Teenager A-Ho (Wu Chien-to) races with fellow gang member on his motorcycle through the pouring rain to a local restaurant. A-Ho thinks this is a simple shakedown to intimidating a rival of theirs. But the gang amputates the rival's hand with a machete (in the film's goriest moment). A-Ho’s father A-Wan (Chien Yi-wen) advocates for a guilty sentence during his son’s trial. When questioned by his wife about why he’s so apathetic towards their son, A-Wan replies that he’s simply giving him a chance to repent while spending time behind bars...

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New International Submissions: Georgia, Luxembourg, and Taiwan

by Nathaniel R

Beginning

We have three more official submissions for Best International Feature Film at the forthcoming Oscars, bringing the number up to nine, and one of them is streaming on Netflix for your pleasure or cathartic misery as the case may be... 

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Best International Feature: Norway, Taiwan & Mexico's contenders

by Cláudio Alves

In a few days, we'll know the ten finalists for the Best International Feature Oscar. Until then, I shall continue exploring some of the 91 submissions. This batch includes last year's champion, Mexico, a prize-winning literary adaptation from Norway and a queer tragicomedy from Taiwan that's currently on Netflix. They're a varied bunch and represent the offerings of countries that have previously achieved great success with the Academy.

First, let's peruse the wintry wonders of the Scandinavian submission…

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The 2018 Animation Contenders: On Happiness Road

Each weekend, Tim has been taking a look at one of the films submitted for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

Taiwan's animation industry does not have a particularly strong reputation, to put it gently. For many years, the country's animation studios have largely served as inexpensive places to farm out work from other, more well-heeled companies, or to produce short films and clips that are largely ephemeral and quickly forgotten. So perhaps the first impressive thing about On Happiness Road is that it exists at all: a Taiwanese-produced feature-length animated film, about Taiwanese history and the cultural position of Taiwan in the wide world. That it is largely good is even more impressive.

The film is the brainchild of writer-director Sung Hsin-Yin, making her first feature after a handful of short films. It tells the life story of Chi (voiced by Kwei Lun-Mi) a thirtysomething expatriate who returns from America to Taipei, where we immediately intuit she'd rather not be... 

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