A City of Sadness Comments

  • Elbert 2023-03-22 08:55:31

    Watching this movie reminded me of a song by Luo Dayou: Orphans in Asia! Taiwan is like an orphan, one's destiny is so helpless in the face of the times, people don't know where their future is, maybe they will disappear in this world inexplicably tomorrow! Black eyes have white fear! Originally a dignified Chinese, but now he can't even tell who he...

  • Aurelia 2023-03-15 00:39:42

    Some people say that whether you have seen "City of Sadness" or not, there are two kinds of life. I used to think this was absolute, it only shows that I am naive. Love stories like Wen Qing and Kuan Mei fluctuated in the big era, so I dare not think about it; the numbness in the small era is trivial all day long. In fact, in this life, people not only understand the world, but also face history and themselves. Looking at history in this way is not to expose the old scars, but to avoid that...

  • Giles 2023-03-13 02:42:17

    Aphasia in Taiwan History. If you can speak, what language should you...

  • Edison 2023-02-23 10:06:25

    The beginning is: we return to the motherland. Then it is: for a while the Japanese, for a while the Chinese, when will the Taiwanese have a good life. Just looking at this sentence, it has a bit of Taiwanese independence. Two of them negotiated, one in Taiwanese, the other in Shanghai dialect, and Cantonese was used as the interpreter, which is very ironic. All the people want is to live and work in peace and contentment, but some people who are afraid that the world will not be in chaos will...

  • Mireya 2023-02-04 04:21:00

    What is history. Lovers whisper. Girl's Diary. Greeting letterhead. Secret language betrayal. Blood Pa's last words. Our discourse about history is so lightly broken because history itself is so...

  • Jamarcus 2023-01-12 09:42:23

    The flashbacks without warning, the loose and jumping narrative, the poetic long shots, the calm and restrained perspective, the incoherence of the plot instead achieves emotional coherence. Hou Hsiao-hsien is not trying to tell a story, or even a real representation, but to let people enter the world that he...

  • Abelardo 2022-12-28 07:17:11

    The family's life is ups and downs with the times, there is no deliberate sensationalism and words, and the silent subtitles are just right (represented by Wen Qing, who can't speak). Whether it is the "Trilogy in Exile", or the Japanese melody that sounds from time to time, as well as the dankaku play, and the local singing, all of them are full of emotions. Those events are so naturally linked together, so gentle and broad and silent, and silently watching and listening, the so-called epic...

  • Kareem 2022-12-26 11:53:47

    Looking at the camera so calmly, but looking at it with sympathy, it's amazing. Many characters and conflicts in the big panorama fit too well with the expression of ordinary people's insignificance in the context of the big era. The construction of life scenes in Hou Hsiao-hsien's films is so real. "You want to live with dignity, and father is innocent." Mrs. Tony Leung in this film is...

  • Eddie 2022-12-23 04:24:55

    The blank space in the narrative space of the picture and the supplement in the narrative space of the sound. Home is the country. Wen Qing's role is the most important - the failure of the voice-based narrative to deaf people, that is, the powerlessness and insignificance of the individual in the face of history, only silence and tolerance. Fixed viewpoint, long shot. People in the mountains, the composition of the threshold, the window, and the split of the mirror. Liang Chaowei's acting...

  • Malvina 2022-12-20 03:47:59

    Sad cities are destined to be tragic, but Hou Hsiao-hsien is not willing to talk about it plainly. There are no flashbacks without any hints, no turning points without any foreshadowing, all of which are astonishing and even irritating, just like having experienced it once and still ignorant of the whole history. Sad City is destined to be sad, but it is completely different from Hou Hsiao-hsien's previous personal sadness. Rather, it is torture, heaviness, despair, and the child's love and...

Extended Reading
  • Devonte 2022-04-23 07:04:35

    City of Sadness

    Colonized places often inevitably face the same problem—the dilemma of collective identity, or belonging. Ben had longing for the motherland and homeland, but was wiped out by the blood of reality——[We are the most pitiful people on this island, the Japanese, the Chinese, everyone eats, everyone...

  • Jimmie 2022-04-22 07:01:53

    How many people have forgotten a silent time

    The perspective in the film is like a third party, showing a piece of Taiwan's tragic history with a calm and gentle eye. The sense of poetry and powerlessness of the camera lens is very strong. Chen Songyong's performance is so wonderful that the male No. 2 Tony Leung is somewhat...