Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter of the Nile

The heroine of the long-running manga series Crest of the Royal Family is a lot like the British nurse in the Outlander franchise, but she traveled back to ancient Egypt. Young Lin Hsiao-yang both identifies with her and fantasizes of being her. However, she is very definitely stuck in the present day of mid-1980s Taipei in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s unfairly overlooked (including by Hou himself) Daughter of the Nile (trailer here), which returns to theaters for its 30^th anniversary, freshly restored in 4K.

Sadly, Lin’s eldest brother died sometime before the film commences, but his loss is constantly felt throughout the narrative. He was the only family member who could keep their middle sibling Lin Hsiao-fang in line. Brother Fang was always a thief and a gambler, but he was good to their mother during her fatal struggle with cancer and also looks out for his little sisters reasonably well. His gangster-gigolo friend Ah-sang is a different story, but Sister Yang falls for him anyway.

For a while, Ah-sang expatriates to America, but it was apparently a bad experience. Lin’s brother paid for the return ticket, but neither speaks of it in any great detail. Ah-sang comes home just as the gang appears poised for success, having opened an upscale restaurant as a semi-front. Yet, Ah-sang’s erratic nature and Hsiao-fang’s increasingly compulsive gambling threaten everyone’s future.

It is strange Nile became the red-headed step-child of Hou’s filmography, because it feels like a perfectly representative example of his style. He would touch on somewhat similar themes in Millennium Mambo, but it would be particularly interesting to watch this film in dialogue with Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day. Both films follow disadvantaged high school students relegated to the night sessions of over-crowded facilities, as they engage it varying degrees of crime. Although the political situation was much more relaxed in the 1980s than the late 1950s, a reckless accusation could still lead to dire consequences.

Poor Taiwanese pop star Lin Yang got a bad rap for her lead performance as Lin Hsiao-yang. Her work is tightly controlled and so restrained she can hardly breathe, but that makes her character so terribly human. Ultimately, it is quite a poignant portrayal. Hou regular Jack Kao is also terrific as the charismatic but self-defeating Hsiao-fang. Yet, Li Tan-lu steals so many scenes as their grandfather, he continued on to play several more grandpas in subsequent Hou films and served as the subject of his bio-pic, The Puppetmaster.

Even in Taipei, the eighties looked like the eighties. In fact, it is a very 1980s kind of story, focusing on several young people struggling to make good while holding together some semblance of a family. This was the Hou film that almost got away, but fortunately it has been restored and given a second chance to resonate with viewers. Highly recommended, Daughter of the Nile opens this Friday (10/27) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

NYFF ’16: Taipei Story

Although it helped usher in the New Taiwanese Cinema movement, Edward Yang’s 1985 masterwork had even greater personal significance for its principals. Budding auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien mortgaged his home to finance the film he co-wrote. He also played the co-lead opposite pop star Tsai Chin, who  would later marry Yang after meeting him on the production. Yet, despite its reputation, the resulting film has largely survived on nearly unwatchable prints. Fortunately, it has been restored to a pristine clarity that will allow cineastes to finally appreciate Yang’s Taipei Story as it was meant to be seen when it screens during the 54^th New York Film Festival.

It seems like Ah-chin is on the brink of realizing her Taiwanese Dream in the opening scene. Assured of a promotion by her boss, she decides to buy a flat in a fashionable neighborhood with her long-term lover Lung, who has recently returned from America to take over his family’s textile concern. However, his restless heart is not in the business or their supposedly on-again romance. He still pines for baseball glory and increasingly resents the mundane realities he is stuck with.

Their relationship is further strained when both are betrayed by their mentor figures. For the westernized, career-minded Ah-chin, suddenly being out of work is particularly humiliating. She tries to console herself with her sister’s hard-partying friends, but she is not accustomed to their lifestyle or the unwanted attention that comes with it.

Yang deliberately chose the English title Taipei Story to echo Ozu’s masterpiece, but the temperaments of the two films could not be more dissimilar. Whereas Ozu pulls the viewer in, inviting us to empathize with his characters, Yang keeps the audience emotionally at arm’s length. Hou and Tsai play Lung and Ah-chin with such extreme reserve in such austere settings, it feels like Yang is literally choking off all the oxygen to the film.

Still, Hou conveys a sense of the barely contained ferocity roiling within Lung. Just seeing him nervously taking practice swings in the opening scene tells us he is trouble. Likewise, Tsai’s Ah-chin utterly unsettles and unbalances viewer expectations and judgments, suggesting not so contradictory elements of naivety and sociopathic manipulation, sometimes even within the same scene.

Indeed, Taipei Story could be seen as the logical fate of the generation that came of age in the paranoid era of Yang’s epic A Brighter Summer Day. They go through the motions of human affairs, but they are not capable of the trust real intimacy requires. It is a potent film, but watching it is a chilly experience. Recommended for those who appreciate social and psychological realism, the spruced up Taipei Story screens this Wednesday (10/5) and Sunday (10/16) as part of this year’s NYFF.

Mark Lee Ping-Bing at MoMA: Dust in the Wind

It was an elegy to the pastoral life that was largely a sentimental memory for scores of Taiwan’s poor urban-migrators. Yet, it counter-intuitively gave hope to many who saw themselves in the young underdog couple and quickly became a touchstone film of the Taiwanese New Wave. Although internationally recognized as an auteurist masterwork, it would not be the same film without its cinematographer, Mark Lee Ping-Bing. It would be conspicuous in its absence, so Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Dust in the Wind (trailer here) duly screens as part of Luminosity, MoMA’s retrospective tribute to Lee.

Everyone in their village knows Wan and his girlfriend Huen are meant to be together, so they feel safe temporarily focusing on earning money to send home from their menial jobs in Taipei. At least, their lives are not as grim as those we regularly see in the sort of documentaries that once screened in the currently exiled Beijing Independent Film Festival. Wan even has a network of hipsterish (by 1980s provincial Taiwanese standards) cronies. Nevertheless, the big city remains a predatory environment. Co-screenwriters and regular Hou collaborators Chu T’ien-wen and Wu Nien-jen even take a page out of De Sica’s Bicycle Thief when the motorcycle Wan relies on for work is stolen. As if life were not challenging enough, he also has his mandatory military service looming.

And yet everyone endures. They make do and live with significant mistakes, but they carry on. It is all quite naturalistic, both in terms of aesthetics and content, but there were a considerable number of young, striving Taiwanese who could relate. Like Hou’s Millennium Mambo, the opening sequence of the train from the nearby city winding its way towards the mountain village of Jio-fen has become iconic. Fittingly, it features prominently Hsieh Chin-lin’s documentary survey of Taiwanese cinema, Flowers of Taipei, and Let the Wind Carry Me, a profile of Lee himself, also screening at MoMA. However, unlike typical cinematic imagery of trains penetrating tunnels, this tracking shot really is symbolic of mobility and modernization.

Deceptively quiet, Hsin Shu-fen eerily suggests all manner of emotions roiling beneath Huen’s shy reserve. Opposite her, Wang Ching-wen resembles a young Lee Kang-sheng, but his relentless sullenness is taxing. However, Li Tien-lu adds real heft and dimension as Wan’s difficult but beloved grandfather.

Throughout Dust, Lee deliberately uses a muted color palate, but that makes the verdant green foothills of Wan’s village pop like an impressionist painting (in fact, Lee also shot Gilles Bourdos’s sun-dappled Renoir screening later during Luminosity). It is a lovely and influential film every serious cinema patron should catch up with. Recommended for those who like their bittersweet movies more bitter than sweet, Dust in the Wind screens this Saturday (6/18) and next Saturday (6/25) as part of Luminosity at MoMA.

Mark Lee Ping-Bing at MoMA: Flowers of Shanghai

Rarely have drinking games and prostitution ever looked so sophisticated. In late Nineteenth Century Shanghai, all the well-to-do gentlemen visited the elegant brothels or flower houses of the British Concession. These were not places to run amok. The flower girls were more like courtesans than sex workers. It was common for patrons to contract exclusive arrangements and the women themselves were considered reasonably marriageable (as second wives, mind you). There was an intricate code of conduct to be upheld by all parties in the exclusive environment. The trappings are lush and the lighting is in fact rather crimson, thanks to the rich, painterly cinematography of Mark Lee Ping-Bing. Fittingly, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s delicate Flowers of Shanghai, which screens as part of Luminosity, MoMA’s retrospective tribute to Lee.

Like many Hou films, Shanghai begins with a tracking shot that sets the tone for the rest of the film. In this case, we watch Shanghai’s Chinese elite play a drinking game, while parceling out fragments of exposition that partially explain the central conflict. The audience will see this apparent cousin of rock-paper-scissors many times, but it remains utterly baffling. It is easier to understand Wang’s dilemma. The wealthy civil servant has fallen in love with an up-and-coming “flower” named Jasmine, despite his long-term patronage of Crimson. Panicked at the prospect of losing her sole client, Crimson has rather publically rebuked Wang.

The resulting scandal has the gentleman caller in a bit of a quandary. After all, he still has feelings for Crimson as well. In fact, he even once proposed to her, only to be rejected. Most of this we learn during the various drinking games, but the experienced Pearl from a rival flower house is always a handy source of gossip. The British Concession will also be talking about Emerald’s rather bold campaign to buy her freedom.

The brothels of Game of Thrones were never as talky as these rarified flower houses. Yet, everyone scrupulously represses their feelings and refuses to say the things they are dying to say. Nobody is better suited to such fatalistic brooding than quietly charismatic “Little Tony” Leung Chiu-Wai. Although dubbed into Cantonese, Japanese model-turned-actress Michiko Hada is perilously fragile and acutely tragic as Crimson. Watching her and Leung circle each other is like ballet or kabuki theater. In contrast, Carina Lau delivers some old school cattiness as Pearl.

As one would expect, there was good reason for including Shanghai in the Luminosity retrospective, beyond Hou’s auteur credentials and the all-star cast. Lee always makes the film quite literally glow. Thanks to his evocative lens, it feels like every scene takes place around two a.m. (even when they don’t), just when the flower houses are starting to wind down for the night. A lovely film and a perfect illustration of Lee’s work, Flowers of Shanghai screens this Friday (6/17) and Wednesday the 29^th as part of Luminosity at MoMA.

NYFF ’15: The Assassin

The cinematic tradition of the butt-kicking woman wuxia warrior can be traced directly to Red Heroine from 1929. It might date back even further, but sadly few Chinese silent films survived Mao’s many destructive mass campaigns. In the succeeding years, Michelle Yeoh and Cheng Pei-pei made their legendary careers playing such characters. However, they never had the sort of exquisitely lush backdrops afforded to Nie Yinniang, the titular anti-heroine of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s long-anticipated first wuxia film (and Taiwan's official Academy submission), The Assassin (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

As child, Nie Yinniang was promised in marriage to her cousin Tian Ji’an but scandal tore those plans asunder. After an ill-fated episode trespassing in a rival family’s palace, Nie is trundled off to Jiaxin, a martial arts nun, who trains her to be the perfect assassin. At twenty-three, her education is complete, but she still shows traces of a conscience. After sparing her most recent target out of sympathy for his young son, Nie is sent home, ostensibly to visit her parents. However, her next assignment will be the very same Tian Ji’an, who is now the headstrong military governor of Hebei Province.

To further complicate matters, Tian Ji’an is openly plotting against Tian Xing, one of his military commanders, who also happens to be a distant relative. Nie Yinniang might just be inclined to intercede on Tian Xing’s behalf, but that is decidedly not what Jiaxin had in mind.

Frankly, Hou’s narrative (also credited to three co-screenwriters) is rather murky and elliptical. Wuxia fans simply have to be content knowing some kind of intrigue is going on, even if the who’s and why’s are a tad tricky to follow. Instead, this is a film meant to wash over viewers. Even at the deliberately confined Academy ratio, The Assassin is a staggering sight, often resembling traditional Chinese watercolor scrolls, with one lone figure (usually Nie) tucked away in the corner of a sprawling landscape. Mark Lee Ping-bin has been one of the best cinematographers not named Christopher Doyle for years, but The Assassin is his finest work yet. Not to belabor the point, but the film is gorgeous.

Having Shu Qi as the lead does not hurt either. In fact, the film would not have worked without her. As a standout in previous Hou films (remember the opening tunnel scene in Millennium Mambo), she can withstand his close scrutiny, quietly projecting a host of emotions with power and economy. Yet, she also has legit action chops forged in films like Journey to the West. In contrast, Chang Cheng looks ill at ease as Tian Ji’an, even though he certainly knows his way around a wuxia film. However, as Jiaxin, Sheu Fang-yi (also excellent as a very different teacher in Touch of the Light) is a wonderfully ambiguous antagonist and a fitting equal to Shu Qi’s Nie.

Martial arts fans might well be put off by Hou’s approach to the fight scenes. For the most part they are executed spectacularly quickly, but that is how an assassin like Nie Yinniang would want to take care of business. It will likely prove divisive among genre diehards, but it is worth experiencing just to see how Hou’s aesthetic translates in a wuxia setting. Recommended for its remarkably accomplished artistry and what may very well prove to be an iconic turn from Shu Qi, The Assassin screens this Friday (10/9) at Alice Tully Hall and Saturday (10/10) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYFF, in advance of its October 16th New York opening at the IFC Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

Also Like Life: Flowers of Taipei

Even according to its most ardent admirers, it was a movement that only lasted a few years in the 1980s. Yet, it has had a lasting influence on art cinema throughout Asia and beyond. If there is one filmmaker who best embodies the New Taiwanese Cinema (or New Wave) it would be Hou Hsiao-hsien. Fittingly, Hou factors prominently in Hsieh Chin-lin’s documentary, Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema (trailer here), which screens as part of the Hou retrospective Also Like Life, now underway at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater.

They were the product of a very specific place, at a very specific time. Taiwan was beginning its transition to a legitimate democracy, while its economy was emerging as one of Asia’s vaunted “Tigers.” Hou and Edward Yang were addressing the Taiwanese character in intimate terms, while also exploring the messier aspects of the nation’s history, including the Japanese occupation and the purges of the 1950s. Perhaps most importantly, they received unprecedented recognition on the international festival circuit.

It is particularly telling to hear Chinese filmmakers like Jia Zhangke and dissident artist Ai Weiwei express their esteem for New Taiwanese Cinema and considerable regret an equivalent movement was not possible in Mainland cinema. Hsieh does not belabor the point, but one gets a real sense that Hou, Yang, and their colleagues helped exorcise many of Taiwan’s ghosts and thereby helped the nation progress into a modern democracy.

We hear from many other appreciative filmmakers, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who credits the New Taiwanese Cinema for shaping his style. It is not hard to see the seeds of his inspiration, but it does not seem fair to lump the 1980s Taiwanese auteurs into the slow cinema rubric. Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day is a particular touchstone for Weerasethakul, but that film has no shortage of plot in its two hundred thirty-seven minutes.

Unlike typical talking head documentaries, Hsieh is unusually sensitive to the power of place. It just adds something unquantifiable when Japanese actor Asano Tadanobu discusses making Hou’s Café Lumière in the Japanese bookstore where many of their scenes were shot. It is also a nice touch interviewing Hirokazu Kore-eda in the hotel room where Ozu and his co-writer Kogo Noda worked out so many of their great collaborations. Of course, Hsieh liberally illustrates Flowers with clips from the films under discussion. Many might be obvious choices, like the stunning opening shot of Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo (which some might consider a post-New film), but they still look great.

There is a fair degree of debate amongst Flowers’ expert commentators, but there is general agreement on the merits of Taiwanese New Cinema films, regardless of categorizations. It is rather fascinating to see how these acutely personal films fit within a larger social and cultural context. This is also an appropriate time to take stock of Taiwanese cinema, with the Hou retrospective now playing in Los Angeles and the Tsai Ming-liang career survey launching at MoMI this weekend, both of whom appear in Flowers. One of the best documentaries on non-genre-related cinema in recent years, Flowers of Taipei is very highly recommended when it screens this Sunday (4/12) in Los Angeles, as part of Also Like Life: the Films of Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

Also Like Life: The Sandwich Man

Look in your pocket and you might find a smart phone made in Taiwan. They were the only one of the four Asian Tiger economies that largely dodged the regional financial crisis of the late 1990s. However, the Republic of China remains very aware of the extreme poverty it rose out of. The memories of its hardscrabble past were even fresher in the early 1980s, when Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien introduced the world to Taiwanese auteurist cinema. One of those watershed films was an anthology production Hou contributed to. Fittingly, Hou, Zeng Zhuangxiang, and Wan Jen’s The Sandwich Man screens this week as part of the traveling Hou retrospective Also Like Life, now playing in Vancouver.

Jin Shu is definitely a crying-on-the-inside kind of clown, but he doesn’t look very cheerful on the outside either. He tramps through his provincial small town wearing his shabby home-made clown costume and sandwich boards advertising the local theater. He has not even been paid yet for his humiliations. This gig was his idea and he is still working on-spec during the trial period. He badly needs work to support his infant son and increasingly impatient wife, but he does not have the right sort of personality for anything involving promotions to the public. Adding further anxiety to his wounded ego, Jin Shu’s little boy no longer recognizes him when he is out of make-up.

In some ways, His Son’s Big Doll (as the story’s title directly translates) also critiqued restrictive Taiwanese laws against contraception that were abolished a few years after the film’s release. It is a relentlessly naturalistic tale about economic desperation, but the surprisingly upbeat conclusion makes it feel like a sort of before-the-fact allegory of Taiwan’s rapid development—just hang on and everything will get better.

Since it is Hou Hisao-hsien and the titular story, The Sandwich Man would seem to be the main event, but the subsequent constituent films are just as good or better. In Zeng’s Vicky’s Hat, two new recruits try to sell Japanese pressure cookers throughout their provincial territory, but they soon start to suspect their product is categorically unsafe. It is a story that has a bit of Glengarry Glen Ross to it, but it is even more concerned with the younger salesman’s halting friendship with Vicky, a mysterious school girl in their neighborhood. There are some fine lines Zeng and his cast must walk—such as establishing his willingness to chastely wait for her to grow old enough for a relationship, but they turn the multiple tragic twists to devastating effect.

Wan’s concluding Taste of Apples is a bit O. Henry-ish—in fact, its irony now seems ironic. A migrant worker is hit by the American military attaché’s car, but this might not be the worst thing that could happen to his struggling family. He will have the best of medical care at the American military hospital, his wife and family will be financially taken care of, and his children will have educational opportunities that never would have otherwise been available to them. Plus, the American Colonel seems genuinely sorry about it all.

Reportedly, the Taiwanese government sought to suppress Sandwich Man because of its portrayal of American government personnel, but considering the anti-American propaganda out there, we should settle for Sandwich Man every chance we get. Sure, we try to fix problems by throwing a bunch of cash around, but that just might work for the family of Apples.

It is also rather fascinating to see how each narrative arc (all adapted from short stories by Huang Chunming, by screenwriter Wu Nien-jen, and shot by cinematographer Chen Kun-hou) speak in dialogue with each other. Those who survived the painful past and make it through the difficult present just might see a better tomorrow, but it will not be easy. A modern classic of Taiwanese cinema, The Sandwich Man could be even more significant when seen in the light of the subsequent thirty-some years of growth and liberalization. Highly recommended, it screens this Thursday (2/26) at The Cinematheque in Vancouver, as part of Also Like Life.

Hou Hsiao-hsien at the Freer: Millennium Mambo

What’s the point of slouching through Fin de siècle Taipei if you do not indulge in a little hedonism? Unfortunately, that seems to be the best life can offer one lost beauty. She will find far more consolation in artificial stimulants and pounding club music than from her spectacularly unhealthy lover in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo (trailer here), which screens tomorrow at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery in Washington, DC.

Vicky is a stunning beauty, but she has made some terrible choices, such as getting involved with Hao-hao, an emotional abusive deadbeat. She would like to make a clean break from him, but every time she tries, he keeps coming back, worming into her life and living space once again. However, when Vicky lets Jack, a mid-level gangster, serve as her sugar-daddy she might finally be well rid of Hao-hao. Nevertheless, do not expect a happy ending for their apparently platonic whatever-it-is.

Mambo’s opening shot of Vicky walking through a somewhat sketchy looking pedestrian bridge is a visual tour-de-force with all the iconic sexuality of Marilyn Monroe’s subway vent encounter, but infused with a potent sense of menace. Unfortunately, the rest of the film lacks the same level of pop. While Hou’s anesthetized vibe is a deliberate strategy that sort of works, his temporal shifts are not clearly delineated. Still, Vicky’s dispassionate narration, told from the vantage point of ten years in the future, is eerily disconcerting. It almost sounds as if she were whispering from the graveyard, even though there is no reason to believe she will not bounce back from her setbacks, landing on her feet or what-have-you.

Few films give viewers such intimate knowledge of its characters, yet somehow we never really feel we understand who they truly are. Of course, that is the whole point. Despite her inscrutability, Shu Qi holds viewers’ attention in a vice-lock. It is not just her ethereal beauty. We can see there is something dramatic brewing in her eyes, we just can’t tell what. As Hao-hao, Tuan Chun-hao makes a contemptible character strangely forgettable, but the steely gravitas of Jack Kao’s namesake at least gives Shu Qi some memorable support during the third act.

Arguably, Mambo is very definitely a product of its hipster millennial time. By now, the combination of its dreamy neon visuals and driving electronica already feels a little dated. Still, the film’s evocative nocturnal look is a prime example why Mark Lee Ping-bin is considered one of the world’s foremost cinematographers. It is hardly perfect, but it is still quite worth seeing, if only for Shu Qi’s seductively raw performance. It should also help tide over fans as we wait and hope for The Assassin, Hou’s first wuxia film, naturally starring Shu Qi. Recommended for those who appreciate Hou’s more rarified art-house releases, Millennium Mambo screens (for free) tomorrow (12/21), at the Freer Gallery in DC.

NYAFF ’12: 10+10

Taiwan is a country with a tragic history and rich legacy of pop music.  Both factor prominently when ten established Taiwanese filmmakers and ten emerging new talents were commissioned by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival to create a five minute films expressing the country’s unique character.  The resulting anthology 10+10 screens this coming Thursday as an official selection of the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival.

Viewers going into 10+10 should not get hung up on consistency.  These twenty filmmakers will cover a lot of emotional and thematic ground.  The tension between tradition and modernization will be a recurring motif, beginning with Wang Toon’s opener, in which a bickering pair of cousins treks up to a remote shrine.  They intent to curry favor with the spirits by showing them the 3-D DVD of Avatar.  It is a quiet but clever piece.

Nostalgia is also on tap in Wu Nien-jen’s A Grocery Called Forever.  Depicting a spirited elderly woman who insists on keeping her family’s corner store open, it is a pleasant slice of life.  Taiwan’s aging population play central roles in several constituent films, perhaps most touchingly in Cheng Wen-tang’s Old Man and Me.  Told from the persona of a now deceased man suffering from Alzheimer’s, it serves as his thank-you to the townspeople who searched the countryside for him when he wandering off to his demise.

Given the approximate five minute durations, many of the installments are rather sketch-like.  Indeed, entries like Wang Shaudi’s Destined Eruption and Yang Ya-che’s The Singing Boy seem to end just as they are getting started.  However, several pack quite a bit of narrative into their limited running times.  Somehow, Chang Tso-Chi’s Sparkles shoehorns the entire 1949 Battle of Kinmen Island into less than ten minutes.  A powerful war film, it follows an innocent girl being escorted to the island’s doctor by the Nationalists, as they desperately try to hold off the invading Communists.

Featuring plenty of explosions, Sparkles is probably one of the most NYAFF-esque films in 10+10.  The other would be Chung Mong-hong’s satisfyingly dark Reverberation.  What starts as a teenaged bullying drama takes a dramatic u-turn into gangster territory.  Karma will be a hard thing.

Easily the strongest shorts are those directly inspired by music.  Chen Kuo-fu’s The Debut is a lovely ghost story, portraying the spectral encouragement offered to a discouraged pop ingénue by one of the great torch singers from yesteryear.  Likewise, Rendy Hou Chi-jan pays tribute to the sentimental ballads of the 1960’s, depicting one song’s power to transcend time.  Ranking just a notch below the lyrical pair, Cheng Yu-chieh’s Unwritten delivers some ironic laughs satirizing the concessions made by the Taiwanese film industry to the mainland market.  Frankly, it is increasingly relevant to Hollywood as well.

Not every film works particularly well.  Wei Te-sheng’s Debut ought to be a DVD extra for his aboriginal war drama Seediq Bale, essentially following his first-time actor Lin Ching-tai as they take the epic to the Venice Film Festival.  Arguably, the low point comes with Kevin Chu Yen-ping’s uncomfortably manipulative and awkwardly didactic The Orphans.

Surprisingly, there is a fair amount of star power in 10+10, including Shu Qi looking typically radiant in marquis contributor Hou Hsiao-hsien’s slight but nonetheless engaging closer La Belle Epoque.  Kwai Lun Mei also graces Leon Dai’s oomph-lacking Key.  Despite attempts to glam her down, she remains a vivid screen presence.

By their nature, anthology films are inherently uneven.  Yet, there are enough good things going on in 10+10 to satisfy connoisseurs of either short films or Asian cinema.  On balance, it is an effective sampling of Taiwanese cinema, well worth a look when it screens this coming Thursday (7/5) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Coming Attraction: Flight of the Red Balloon

Call it RB2: the Revenge. Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien has crafted his homage to Albert Lamorisse’s classic short children’s film, The Red Balloon (which was debuted for American audiences on G.E. Theater, with host Ronald Reagan). In truth, it is quite faithful to the gentle spirit of the original, yet Flight of the Red Balloon (trailer here) is somewhat of a departure in many respects.

Superficially, Flight is a simple story. Hou takes us inside a small Parisian family—one that is complicated, but fully functional. Suzanne, an artsy puppeteer played by the film’s only name actor, Juliette Binoche, lives with her son Simon. She hires Song, a Taiwanese film student, as her new child-minder. Though reserved, Song meshes well with their family. As a filmmaker, she is a natural observer, often framing the film’s events for the audience. Most of the family drama happens off-camera, involving Simon’s unseen absentee father, and his half-sister only appearing only in flashback.

Like its inspiration, Flight begins with a boy walking the streets of Paris, finding a red balloon strangely attracted to him. However, after the opening the sequence, the mysterious balloon does not reappear again until roughly midway through the film. It is the shrewdly observed subtleties of Simon’s family that occupy Hou. Those requiring a constant stream of plot twists and turns would probably want to scream during Flight.

Yet in some ways, it is a refreshing film. Although Simon is in many ways more grounded than his dramatic mother, their relationship is a loving one. Likewise, he adores his half-sister Louise. There is no reliance on sibling rivalry or other such clichés as plot devices.

Hou creates some strong visuals, taking advantage of the cinematic potential of Suzanne’s puppet shows, and the enduring beauty of the city of Paris. He is aided by a very evocative classical piano score.

The small cast is excellent, rising to the challenge of Hou’s intimate scrutiny. Binoche conveys Suzanne’s hyper nature, while maintaining both sympathy and credibility with the audience. Young Simon Iteanu as the conveniently named Simon has a remarkably assured screen presence. Likewise, Song Fang as Song brings a sense of intelligence to what could have easily devolved into a stock character.

Flight is a quiet film of discrete charm. Some viewers might respond to it like family, finding it difficult to like, but loving it anyway. It opens April 4th at the IFC Film Center in New York. Those who affectionately remember Lamorisse’s film, and do not suffer from excessive ADD should check it out.