Taipei Story

Effectively depicts a generation caught between tradition and progress, drawing on the dead knowledge of past experience misaligned with the present day, resulting in alienation and stasis. Yang directs with confidence and uses silence and space to really highlight the disconnect of his characters in a subtle and interesting way, but he can't fully escape the limitations of this post-Antonionian urban style, although he avoids bleak chic because it's clear where his sympathies lie.

Powerful ending. Only in the waning moments did it occur to me that this is a story about identity. Ironic how obscured this is by the beautiful images of its emotionally-confused characters, under-exposed in the equal parts decaying and neon-drenched Taipei. I did find the middle to drag quite a bit, so I'd have to rate this less than The Terrorizers or his other better known works. There are still many moments and scenes that are characteristically Yang's aesthetic, which is to be cherished.

Attains incredible beauty and nuance, but at times (mostly the middle) feels like its caught between a relationship made for metaphorical statements and a relationship made for drama.

I am fascinated how Yang (certainly with help from his Thai New Wave compatriots right now, but this fits his later, more known work) will so delicately and subtly develop characters around these films.

One of those films where I can appreciate the things it does and even the way it does them, but it just fails to resonate with me. This isn't the most marvelously shot film but there is care taken in the way shots are constructed and the atmosphere fits the alienation of the characters very well. The character arcs are pretty easy to follow and well fleshed out. All the elements are there and I can see others loving it but it's a bit too plain and detached for me.

A little underwhelming having seen The Terrorizors, one of the best movies I’ve watched in the last couple of years. Hou is not much of a leading man, and his character is kind of a drag on the whole thing. Maybe that’s the point (I can probably guess what he’s representing metaphorically) but it did kinda feel like I just watched a woman do almost literally nothing for two straight hours. Two very beautiful hours, but still. It took me quite a while to realise they weren’t siblings

Chin focuses entirely on the new Taipei and runs from her shitty traditional family (that scene near the beginning where they visit her parents and she slips into this servile role is quietly brutal), which leaves her forward-thinking but not fully satisfied, while Lung is stuck in the past, unwilling to adapt to the changes in society, fighting against the inevitable. All this plus a cynical look at globalisation and one of the best colour palettes in any movie ever tbh

Edward Yang always able to create a very original cinematic language. There, you can feel the characters, their relationships and the city. Still, there are moments in this film where the pace does not feel right, like it does not belong to it. Maybe it's because the cities move so fast while our lives (and also the characters' lives) don't. I don't know.

Very solid, downbeat drama with interesting, deep characters, including Lung, who peaked at 12 when his team won the Little League World Series, and Chin, who has lost her job. Both are floundering a bit to try to find their identities. Lung can't escape the past. The pivotal conversation near the end, filmed in the dark with only silhouettes, was an interesting choice from a filmmaking perspective. I didn't like it nearly as much as Yi Yi, though, which is the other Yang I've seen to date.

So elegantly shot and narrated. A true heartbreaking story about identities and lives in transit, as characters reflect on staying or leaving (to US), loving or moving on.

think there is something to be said about how a story about a time and place so removed from me can make me feel like i understand it so well- so concisely.

Yang had an unsurpassed gift for raising the quotidian dramas of everyday living to the level of poetry (though terribly unfettered poetry, at that).

Ultimately boring yet surprisingly charming.

It's Ed Yang, so it's pretty great but I think this is weaker Yang overall. Too much of a "critique" and not enough... romance maybe? Romanticism perhaps? Basically, I would have preferred more Mahjong and less The Terrorizers.

# 794