In Our Time [光陰的故事] (1982)

Generally seen as the film which kicked off the Taiwan New Cinema, this movie consists of four segments by young Taiwanese directors. The segments, although unrelated in terms of plot and characters, move forward in the sense that the main characters move in age from young children to young adults while the time period is…

White River [燕交] (2023)

A strikingly unusual Chinese film. Set in Yanjiao (the Chinese title), a dormitory city 35 km from the centre of Beijing across the Chaobai river, during COVID. COVID warning messages ring out and all travel to Beijing (including across the frozen river) has been cut off. Yang Fan [Tian Yuan] and her husband Yuan Yong…

Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema (2014)

An interesting documentary about Taiwan New Cinema available on Mubi. The film does not adopt a chronological approach and tends to jump about a lot which viewers may or may not like. The film contains numerous scenes from a range of Taiwanese films and is by no means confined to the usual suspects (Hou and…

Mahjong [麻将] (1996)

Despite his relatively small output Edward Yang is one of the most interesting Chinese (and Taiwanese) directors of the late twentieth century. Mahjong is his penultimate film and, for reasons we will see, one of his less well known. The film, set again in Taipei, focuses on two loosely related groups who meet at the…

Blue Moon [藍月] (1998)

There is usually only one full moon every month, but occasionally there are two - and that second full moon is called the "Blue Moon". It is said that when a person sees a blue moon and makes a wish, he will be granted a second chance in things. An interesting and unusual Taiwanese film.…

Snow Leopard [གངས་གཟིག] (2023)

East Asia Film Festival Ireland 2024 The final film by director Pema Tseden who died last year aged only 53. Unfortunately, it is one of his weakest. We open with a public TV film crew in a jeep on a 4,000 m high plateau in a Tibetan part of Qinghai province (as with several previous…

Xinpianchang shorts

Several recent short crime/thriller films on https://www.xinpianchang.com/ Hot Pot [火锅] (2021) is appropriately set in Chongqing with much of the dialogue in local dialect. A group of five criminals meet for (spicy) hot pot and, of course, drink. It appears that the group are about to divide the spoils and split up but tensions emerge as…