Shiang-Chyi returns from France to Taipei, a city suffering from a water shortage, and meets a young man who used to sell watches. But Hsiao-Kang is now making porn films and the girl finds herself in a strange world full of strange people.
The latest film from director Tsai Ming-Liang contains a series of elements which also appeared in his film What Time Is It There? (screened at Karlovy Vary in 2001 in the section Horizons — Award-Winning Films). Shiang-Chyi returns home from France and, in Taipei, she discovers that the whole city is suffering from a water shortage. In a chance encounter, she meets the watch-seller Hsiao-Kang, whom she used to know from before; they continue their romantic encounter back at her flat. But the girl doesn’t realise that Hsiao-Kang now makes porn videos and that weird things are going on with weird people right on her doorstep. What happens when Shiang-Chyi crosses their path? The fragmented film narration is interwoven with lively, imaginative musical sequences which sidetrack the viewer from the mysterious goings-on in the girl’s flat.
115 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Tsai Ming-liang
/ Screenplay Tsai Ming-Liang
/ Dir. of Photography Liao Pen-Jung
/ Editor Chen Sheng-Chang
/ Producer Bruno Pesery
/ Production Arena Films
/ Cast Lee Kang-Sheng, Chen Shiang-Chyi
/ Contact GoodFellas
www: www.wildbunch.biz
Tsai Ming-Liang (b. 1957, Kuching, Malaysia) studied drama and film at the Academy of Performing Arts in Taiwan and began to work as a producer and director for the theatre, while also writing for TV. He has written screenplays and, in the mid-1990s, made the feature films Rebels of the Neon God (Qingshaonian nayu, 1992) and Vive l’amour (Aiqing wansui, 1994), which were internationally acknowledged (Golden Lion at the Venice IFF). For the film The River (He liu, 1996) he won a Silver Bear at the Berlin IFF in 1997. Other films include: The Hole (Dong, 1998), What Time Is It There? (Ni neibian jidian, 2001) and Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Bu san, 2003). Apart from his debut and Goodbye, Dragon Inn all his films have been screened at Karlovy Vary.
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