Hsiao-Hsien Hou

A residential neighborhood in Tokyo, 2003. Yoko, a freelance writer researching musical legend Jiang Ewn-Ye, befriends Hajime, the owner of a secondhand bookstore. They spend many hours together in the district's coffee shops and train stations. Yoko feels she can tell the quiet, calm Hajime anything. When she is with him, she experiences an unusual peace of mind, a calmness of spirit. For his part, Hajime loves Yoko profoundly, but remains silent... (Wild Bunch)

The remarkable Shu Qi stars as Vicky, a lost soul who hangs out partying with her friends, smoking nonstop, and dancing and flirting. She lives with Hao-Hao (Tuan Chun-hao), but he doesn't seem to excite her anymore, so she starts seeing an older gangster, Jack (Jack Kao), although the depth of the relationship is left purposely ambiguous. Although Vicky wants to be a free spirit, she is battling demons that cast dark shadows over her somewhat meaningless existence. (Rotten Tomatoes)

Three stories set in three times, 1911, 1966 and 2005. Two actors play the two main characters in each story. (imdb)

Hsiao-hsien's landmark epic uses the story of a single family to reflect the most chaotic period in Taiwan's history: four years that witness the end of Japanese occupation, mass migrations from the mainland, and the rise of martial law.

This Film explores the world of small-time crime in the present-day suburban backwaters of Taipei.It follows the luckless entrepreneurial ventures of Kao (Jack Kao) and his misfit cohort Flat Head (Lim Giong). A non-stop schemer, Kao devises a plan to raise money by trading subsidized pigs to the government for cash. The ruse works, but when the temperamental Flat Head antagonizes the wrong people, the two find themselves caught up in a dangerous game of corrupt politics.(tigercinema.com)

Intended as the concluding film in the trilogy on the modern history of Taiwan began with Beiqing Chengshi (1989)... (imdb)

In the first half of this century, young Li Tienlu joines a travelling puppet theatre and subsequently... (imdb)

A-yuan and A-yun are both from the small mining town of Jio-fen. In the city, A-yuan is an apprentice by day and goes to night school... (imdb)

Shanghai, the 1880s, four elegant brothels (flower houses): each has an auntie (the madam), a courtesan in her prime, older servants, and maturing girls in training (imdb)

This depiction of childhood and adolescence draws heavily from the filmmaker's own boyhood. (imdb)

A boy and his little sister are taken by their young uncle to spend their summer holiday at the country house of their grandparents. They leave behind their father and a seriously ill mother who is hospitalised and awaiting an operation.

Composed of three separate stories. The first tells about a man who ekes out a living for his young family by carrying advertisement sandwich boards. The second vignette tells of two ambitious young men who discover too late that a product they are trying to sell is defective. The third vignette explores what happens when a poor laborer is struck by a high-ranking American official's automobile.

Suzanne (Juliette Binoche) is charming but she is a mother snowed under by obligations. With her puppet shows, the classes she teaches and the two children, Simon and Louise, that she has been raising alone since their father left, she hasn't got a minute to herself. To help her, she takes in a young Taiwanese babysitter, Song Fang, who is a student at Paris University... (imdb)

Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through relatives, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city. (imdb)

This is a compelling Taiwanese drama about a wistful schoolgirl (Yang Lin) who is peripherally involved in a teen-aged crime ring. She escapes from the harshness of her surrounding reality by reading her favorite comic book, Daughter of the Nile. Despite its inherent whimsical nature, the film is a straight-on look at urban decay in modern Taiwan.

Hou's first movie is a romantic comedy about a couple which is in love for each other.

Play while You Play, usually known as Cheerful Wind (1981), is Hou Hsiao-hsien's second film, a romantic drama about a blind man and a somewhat self-indulgent television producer. It's one of his three commercial "musicals," and seldom seen, let alone discussed. I think that stylistically these films lay the groundwork for his Taiwanese New Wave films from The Sandwich Man onward. (surrealmoviez)

Da-Nian is a young man from Taipei. He goes to a remote village and works as a substitute teacher. He and Su-Yun, another teacher at the school, fall in love. There are several students in his class who are like the naughty "three musketeers", and a sad, silent boy Xiang-Wang, whose parents are divorced. Besides, in order to support the family, Xian-Wang's father kills the fish in the river with electricity, which is against the law and causes a lot of damage to the natural resources. (imdb)

The film is set during the mighty Tang Dynasty-period in Chinese history. Nie Yinniang returns to family after several years in exile. The mission of her order is to eliminate the tyrany of the Governors who avoid the authority of the Emperor. Now she will have to choose between sacrificing the man she loves, or break definitively with the "order of the Assassins" (Martin Matevosyan)