Movies: Hou Hsiao-hsien

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day....

A photographer travels with her boyfriend to a seaside village in Penghu. There she strikes up a relationship with a blind man. When they reencounter one another back in Taipei, where he is preparing to undergo an operation to restore his sight, thei...

A woman is transported into a world as strange and beautiful as her dreams in this fantasy. Singing, who comes from a family of poor shopkeepers, earns her living as a cleaning woman on a ferry that services a military base. Singing has a recurring d...

Tung-Ching’s life has changed since a car accident three months ago. The lifeline on his right hand was scratched off in this incident. A nurse told him that his life is no longer controlled by fate but has become unpredictable since then. Three mon...

A-Guo and A-Dou are two teenagers living in an industrial town in Taiwan, who fight, loaf, and cause trouble all day and hang out with Jie, a young gangster. When Jie's gangland patron is gunned down, the trio set out to revenge the killing. As a res...

The story follows a young man as he changes from an intelligently aware youth, to a teenager with much less confidence than he once had, and finally, to a stable adult....

Two independent stories involving chess wizards are interwoven to satirize the politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as well as Taiwan's capitalist boom of the 1970's....

Jin is in her 60s. Her husband gone, her concern is for daughter Zuer, in New York trying out IVF with her partner Michelle. When Jin receives news that Zuer and Michelle have died in an accident, she heads for NY. There, she has another shock: she h...

With Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy....

Composed of three separate stories, the film vividly portrays Taiwan during the cold war period when the country developed its economy with help from the United States....

Oom has no papers or formal training but is good at caring for the elderly and disabled. When his situation as a caregiver in the mountains becomes too much for him, he has to choose between survival or dignity....

A substitute teacher from Taipei arrives in a country village to teach a class of mischievous students. He soon falls in love with nature, country life and a fellow teacher at the school....

One of Hong Kong's most influential filmmakers, Ann Hui, becomes a “star” for the first time in Man Lim-chung's directorial debut. A forerunner of the New Wave, Hui’s tumultuous, forty-year career is an unequivocal testimony to her unyielding dedicat...

This is a story of reminiscence, remembering my long-deceased Grandpa. To remember is to transcend, therefore it’s a story of time and space, overlapped and intertwined. It’s also a quest of love and work, a spiritual and emotional journey; and throu...

The startling contrast between old and new Taiwan is the subject of Wan Jen's epic of traditional identities coming into conflict with an urban life, emphasizing the situation of women....

On his 60th birthday, Van is told that he is seriously ill. But instead of going to Taipei for treatment, his illness leads him to Japan. Together with his son, he goes in search of the father who abandoned him 50 years ago. At the same time, a young...

The daughter of a wealthy man takes French lessons so she can go to France with her fiancée, but ends up falling for a poor man who studies civil engineering....

10+10 is a project initiated by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival to demonstrate the solidarity between Taiwanese film-makers. 20 directors are invited to make a 5-minute short film each on the theme of the “Uniqueness of Taiwan,” but allowed tot...

An exploration of Chinese cinema and its relationships with gender and sexuality, which the film argues has been more frankly and provocatively explored than in any other national cinema. Utilizing both film excerpts and interviews with many leading ...

A couple is torn by conflicting emotions. Jing and Mi are two women living in Taiwan who have been lovers for some time; Jing is a singer in a rock band who suffers from severe mood swings and has been suffering from a fractured relationship with her...