Millennium Mambo is in many ways a thematic foil to Hou’s Flowers of Shanghai.
Its veneer of abstract dispassion gradually reveals a heartfelt alternate history that lives up to the genre’s notions of nobility.
One of Hou’s constant themes (one that recurs in the work of many of the notable Taiwanese directors) is alienation, not just of a personal, but of a national sort.
In a competition otherwise marked by compromise and caution, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s austere, astounding film feels like it’s been beamed in from another era entirely.
Stephen Chow’s distinctive vision is evident in the seemingly boundless imagination of his scenarios, and in the film’s sincere spiritual concerns and generosity toward misfits and outsiders.
A lighthearted interclass romantic tale, Love interweaves stories of eight Beijing urbanites as they go about looking for happiness in rather clumsy ways.
The visual magnificence shouldn’t be too surprising, as the film has been directed by Andrew Lau.
It’s exciting as well as a little nerve-wracking that Hou Hsiao-hsien’s latest feature offers many firsts in his career.
Hou’s latest is a rumination on the symbiotic union between the past and present, the personal and the political.
This “Special Delivery" DVD re-release is mostly a thinly disguised rehash of previously existing material.
At its most beautiful, the film evokes the paralysis of modern living and the promise of change.
This is probably the closest to a Franco experience as its Freedom Fries-eating target audience is likely to get.
The Transporter is little more than a cheap knock-off of John Woo’s The Killer.