Hou Hsiao-hsien

Mongrel (2025)

Oom has no papers or formal training but is good at caring for the elderly and disabled. When his situation as a caregiver in the mountains becomes too much for him, he has to choose between survival or dignity. ...

Daughter's Daughter (2024)

Jin is in her 60s. Her husband gone, her concern is for daughter Zuer, in New York trying out IVF with her partner Michelle. When Jin receives news that Zuer and Michelle have died in an accident, she heads for NY. There, she has another shock: she has inh ...

Old Fox (2023)

Set in the late 1980s, this family drama is about an 11-year-old boy who befriends his landlord, nicknamed Old Fox, and learns from him how to survive in a rapidly changing world as well as things his poor father would never be able to teach him. ...

Be with Me (2023)

This is a story of reminiscence, remembering my long-deceased Grandpa. To remember is to transcend, therefore it's a story of time and space, overlapped and intertwined. It's also a quest of love and work, a spiritual and emotional journey; and through whi ...

Salute (2022)

Dancer SHEU Fang-yi's career has been told through her modern dance dramas such as Sparrow, Stranger, Wall, and Martha GRAHAM's Heretic. Martha GRAHAM once said: "A dancer dies twice — once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painfu ...

I Remember (2022)

"I Remember" tells the story of sister writers Chu Tien-wen and Chu Tien-xin, from co-founding the San-san magazine to their respective creative and political efforts up to the present. ...

The Inspired Island: Unfulfilled Dreams (2020)

Chu Tien-Wen, frequent screenwriter for Hou Hsiao-Hsien, makes her directorial debut with this entry in The Inspired Island documentary series. With Hou as producer, cinematographer Yao Hung-I and editor Liao ChingSung, Chu takes a deep dive into the story ...

Baby (2018)

When a woman who was abandoned at birth because of a genetic disorder sees a child facing the same fate, she finds herself trying to persuade their parents to reconsider and goes to extreme lengths to save the child. ...

Father to Son (2018)

On his 60th birthday, Van is told that he is seriously ill. But instead of going to Taipei for treatment, his illness leads him to Japan. Together with his son, he goes in search of the father who abandoned him 50 years ago. At the same time, a young man w ...

Missing Johnny (2017)

Hsu Zi Qi is a young woman who lives alone in the city. Lee is the autistic son of Zi Qi's landlady, who tries to free himself from his protective mother. Feng is a shy young builder, who struggles with the constant breakdowns of his car. ...

The Assassin (2015)

9th century China. Ten year old general's daughter Nie Yinniang is abducted by a nun who initiates her into the martial arts, transforming her into an exceptional assassin charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt local governors. One day, having failed i ...

Paradise in Service (2014)

Set in the island Kinmen, often seen as the most dangerous military base because it's geographically close to China, "Paradise in Service" follows the adventure of a boy who serves his military service in Unit 831 from 1969 to 1972, in preparation for a wa ...

Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (2013)

Documenting Taiwan from an aerial perspective offering a glimpse of Taiwan's natural beauty as well as the effect of human activities and urbanization on our environment. ...

Return Ticket (2011)

All the way, Cao Li has come alone. From Fuyang to Shenzhen. From Shenzhen to Shanghai. From Shanghai to home? Leaving hometown is her choice, the choice out of no choice. Returning home is her dream, the dream getting blinded by the neon lights in the cit ...

10 Plus 10 (2011)

10+10 is a project initiated by the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival to demonstrate the solidarity between Taiwanese film-makers. 20 directors are invited to make a 5-minute short film each on the theme of the "Uniqueness of Taiwan," but allowed total fre ...

Liu Xiaodong: Hometown Boy (2011)

One of the best-known Chinese figurative painters, Liu Xiaodong goes back to his hometown of Jincheng, in the province of Liaoning (North-East China), to re-paint again friends and relatives after several years have gone by. With a soundtrack by famed comp ...

Taipei Exchanges (2010)

Doris simply wanted to open a refined, stylish coffee shop in a bohemian Taipei neighborhood, but when she's stuck with a load of useless gifts from the opening celebration, her younger sister Josie turns the café into a burgeoning bartering business. The ...

One Day (2010)

A woman is transported into a world as strange and beautiful as her dreams in this fantasy. Singing, who comes from a family of poor shopkeepers, earns her living as a cleaning woman on a ferry that services a military base. Singing has a recurring dream i ...

In the Golden Age of Chinese Craftsmanship (2008)

The essence of progress in civilization has always been handiwork. In traditional Chinese civilization, the emperor was supreme. Vested with the authority to enjoy the best of handiwork, all crafts used for residence, clothing, food, and travel were the mo ...

To Each His Own Cinema (2007)

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state ...

Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)

The first part in a new series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, 'Flight of the Red Balloon' tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. The film was shot in August and September 2006 on location in Paris. This is H ...

Reflections (2007)

A couple is torn by conflicting emotions. Jing and Mi are two women living in Taiwan who have been lovers for some time; Jing is a singer in a rock band who suffers from severe mood swings and has been suffering from a fractured relationship with her mothe ...

Three Times (2005)

In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance. ...

Café Lumière (2004)

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city's disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a u ...

Millennium Mambo (2001)

Vicky recalls her romances with her exes Hao Hao and Jack in the neon-lit clubs of Taipei. ...

Mirror Image (2001)

Tung-Ching's life has changed since a car accident three months ago. The lifeline on his right hand was scratched off in this incident. A nurse told him that his life is no longer controlled by fate but has become unpredictable since then. Three months la ...

Flowers of Shanghai (1998)

At the end of the 19th century, Shanghai is divided into several foreign concessions. In the British concession, a number of luxurious "flower houses" are reserved for the male elite of the city. Since Chinese dignitaries are not allowed to frequent brothe ...

Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996)

In this portrait of small-time hoods rendered in rhythm-of-life anecdotal detail, Gao is the leader of a circle of layabouts including his sidekick, Flathead, and their girlfriends, Pretzel and Ling. He is also the originator of petty crime schemes, which ...

Why Don't We Sing? (1996)

In June, 1993 , the gravestone of Hsu Ching-Lan was finally found in Liuchangli by his brother after 40 years of searching. Hsu was killed by the KMT during the 'White Terror,' the organized suppression of leftist activities in Taiwan in the 1950s. ...

A Borrowed Life (1995)

Sega's children, born into post-war Chinese rule, can't relate to their father's love for Japanese culture, having grown up under Japanese rule before WWII. ...

Good Men, Good Women (1995)

An actress preparing to play in a historical epic is terrorized by someone faxing her pages from her stolen diary; has colorful flashbacks of her affair with a now-deceased man; and imagines black-and-white film-within-a-film scenes of the movie she is abo ...

Heartbreak Island (1995)

In Taiwan, a young woman, Lin-Lang, is released from prison after serving ten years for terrorist activity. She had turned to bomb making in grief after her mentor and lover, An Rong, who was also her university professor, was arrested for political activi ...

The Puppetmaster (1993)

Master puppeteer Li Tien-lu recalls his life in Japanese-occupied Taiwan during the first half of the 20th century. ...

Treasure Island (1993)

A group of young Taipei residents is drawn into the city's underworld through the growing obsession of one, the boyish Ah-feng, for the sexy Cantonese mistress of a gang boss. ...

Dust of Angels (1992)

A-Guo and A-Dou are two teenagers living in an industrial town in Taiwan, who fight, loaf, and cause trouble all day and hang out with Jie, a young gangster. When Jie's gangland patron is gunned down, the trio set out to revenge the killing. As a result, t ...

Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained. ...

King of Chess (1991)

Two independent stories involving chess wizards are interwoven to satirize the politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as well as Taiwan's capitalist boom of the 1970's. ...

A City of Sadness (1989)

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987. ...

Daughter of the Nile (1987)

Lin Hsiao-yang tries to keep her family together while working as a waitress at Kentucky Fried Chicken and going to night school. With no mother and her father currently working out of town, it is up to Lin Hsiao-yang to take care of her younger siblings, ...

Dust in the Wind (1986)

A-yuan and A-yun are both from the small mining town of Jio-fen. They move to Taipei, where A-yuan is an apprentice by day and goes to night school, and A-yun works as a helper at a tailors. Everyone thinks they are meant for each other, and so do they. Th ...

The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)

An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China. ...

Taipei Story (1985)

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander hi ...

My Favorite Season (1985)

Bi Bao-Liang is a 29 year-old man who believes that he will have bad luck if he touches a woman before he turns thirty. Liu Xiang-mei is a beautiful woman who had a love affair with her married boss, and now she is pregnant. In order to give her child a fa ...

A Summer at Grandpa's (1984)

A coming-of-age story about a young brother and sister whom spend a pivotal summer in the country with their grandparents. ...

Out of the Blue (1984)

Teenagers Jielong and Tangmi secretly love each other, but Tangmi vanishes after they spend a night out together. Jielong has to turn back to focus on his studies and enter university. Unexpectedly, Tangmi resurfaces with a newborn baby. ...

The Sandwich Man (1983)

Composed of three separate stories, the film vividly portrays Taiwan during the cold war period when the country developed its economy with help from the United States. ...

The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)

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, ...

Ah Fei (1983)

The startling contrast between old and new Taiwan is the subject of Wan Jen's epic of traditional identities coming into conflict with an urban life, emphasizing the situation of women. ...

Growing Up (1983)

The story follows a young man as he changes from an intelligently aware youth, to a teenager with much less confidence than he once had, and finally, to a stable adult. ...

The Green, Green Grass of Home (1982)

A substitute teacher from Taipei arrives in a country village to teach a class of mischievous students. He soon falls in love with nature, country life and a fellow teacher at the school. ...

Six Is Company (1982)

Kenny Bee plays a saxophonist who works in a night club. Fang Hui-jang is the oldest sister in a four-child family whose father is working abroad. They are forced to live together in a house because they are fooled by a cheater who pretends to be the owner ...

Play While You Play (1981)

A photographer travels with her boyfriend to a seaside village in Penghu. There she strikes up a relationship with a blind man. When they reencounter one another back in Taipei, where he is preparing to undergo an operation to restore his sight, their conn ...

Longing (1981)

Longing. A taiwanese film directed by Kun-Hou Chen and written by Hsiao-Hsien Hou. ...

Spring in Autumn (1980)

Spring in Autumn tells the story of university student Cheng Wei who rescues He Liwen, a woman facing a family crisis, abandonment by her boyfriend, and the predicament of pregnancy. He takes her in and accompanies her through an abortion procedure. After ...

Cute Girl (1980)

The daughter of a wealthy man takes French lessons so she can go to France with her fiancée, but ends up falling for a poor man who studies civil engineering. ...

Chu Lien (1979)

Zhijie, in her bid to find a wife for her mentally-challenged son, found Chu Lien to become her daughter-in-law. From then, Chu Lien's life becomes miserable, constantly being physically abused. Fortunately, Shun-hsing took pity on her, both of them quiet ...

Good Morning, Taipei (1979)

A loose youth passes the time freely until he comes across a young, female broadcaster who works at a radio station. ...

It Was Rainy Last Night (1979)

A romance about a girl who falls in love and marries a music teacher. The couple struggle through life as the man does not want to accept money from his rich father. ...

Lover on the Wave (1978)

Chao Ta-jung and Yuan-yuan met at the seashore by chance. Ta-jung was impressed with Yuan-yuan's compassion towards those who were less unfortunate even though she had given him a hard time. They soon fell in love and decided to get married but due to Yuan ...

The Revenge of Two Exorcists (1975)

THE REVENGE OF THE TWO EXORCISTS (1975) is another rarity; this one from Lai Sheng Ying, a cinematographer turned director. Based on a Chinese folk tale, according to the article, all the stars are new faces and a portion of the film was shot in Japan. ...

Beautified Realism: The Making of 'Flowers of Shanghai' (2021)

A new documentary by Daniel Raim and Eugene Suen on the making of "Flowers of Shanghai," featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Mark Lee Ping-bing, producer and editor Liao Ching-sung, production designer Hwarng Wern-ying, and sound record ...

Keep Rolling (2020)

One of Hong Kong's most influential filmmakers, Ann Hui, becomes a "star" for the first time in Man Lim-chung's directorial debut. A forerunner of the New Wave, Hui's tumultuous, forty-year career is an unequivocal testimony to her unyielding dedication to ...

Dragon Girls! (2016)

Yves Montmayeur takes Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the starting point for his study of the new female warrior in Asian pop culture. From Beijing to Tokyo and Taiwan, he went to meet with the most iconic muses of this new trend, including Michelle Yeoh ...

The Moment: Fifty Years of Golden Horse (2016)

In 2013, the Golden Horse Film Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary. The ministry of Culture commissioned director Yang Li-chou to make a documentary about the history of Golden Horse. What is unique to this film is that it's not an ode to celebrities ...

Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema (2014)

With Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy. ...

Past Present (2013)

A contemplative trip down memory lane with one of the leading voices of the Second New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema. Saw Tiong Guan clearly established a very personal bond with his subject, and also found many of Tsai Ming-liang's colleagues prepared to compl ...

A Special Day (2012)

At the 60th anniversary of Cannes Film Festival, 34 famous directors are followed by camera. ...

I Wish I Knew (2010)

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day. ...

Let the Wind Carry Me (2009)

Focusing on Mark Lee Ping-bin, one of the most talented and prolific cinematographers in Asia, the movie details the itinerant lifestyle of a deeply observant and philosophical artist and the tolls that his profession takes on his family life. ...

In the Golden Age of Chinese Craftsmanship (2008)

The essence of progress in civilization has always been handiwork. In traditional Chinese civilization, the emperor was supreme. Vested with the authority to enjoy the best of handiwork, all crafts used for residence, clothing, food, and travel were the mo ...

My Father Was a Red Balloon: Albert Lamorisse's Life Story (2008)

Pascal Lamorisse is the son of filmmaker Albert Lamorisse. He is also the little hero of some of his father's films (White Mane, The Red Balloon and Stowaway in the Sky). Over the years, Albert Lamorisse, who took his son on all his shoots, sought to tran ...

Hou Hsiao-Hsien Master Class (2007)

Chinese film school students and the professors from the Greater China Region gathered together at Hong Kong Baptist University to discuss the many serious film issues in the region. ...

Métro Lumière (2004)

French-made documentary, "Métro Lumière", which actually does help provide some of the context for Hsiao-hsien's approach to the film. It includes excerpts from Ozu's films, in particular, "Equinox Flower", to show the parallels with this film, the obvio ...

Our Time, Our Story (2002)

Richly illustrated with film clips and interviews, OUR TIME, OUR STORY tells the still-evolving story of the Taiwanese "new wave," from its rise in the early 1980s, as the island was democratizing after decades under martial law, through growing internatio ...

HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1999)

Entry on Taiwanese new-wave filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien for French television's "Cinéma, de notre temps" series, directed by Olivier Assayas. ...

Yang ± Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema (1998)

An exploration of Chinese cinema and its relationships with gender and sexuality, which the film argues has been more frankly and provocatively explored than in any other national cinema. Utilizing both film excerpts and interviews with many leading direct ...

Talking with Ozu (1993)

A tribute to the legendary Japanese film director featuring the reflections of filmmakers Lindsay Anderson, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Aki Kaurismäki, Stanley Kwan, Paul Schrader, and Wim Wenders ...

When Cinema Reflects the Times: Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang (1993)

From the 1980s to the 1990s, New Taiwanese Cinema gained international attention for adopting a completely different approach to that of the commercial films which had preceded it. This piece contrasts Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang, two rivals who were t ...

Sunless Days (1990)

Director Shu Kei travelled to Venice, Canada, London and Hong Kong, collecting accounts of the Tiananmen impact. Among his interviewees are: award-winning Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien; Hong Kong director Alfred Cheung, a witness to the massacre; act ...

I Love Mary (1988)

Soul (1986)

Ip Cheung and her husband, a senior police inspector, had been happily married for 18 years. One day, Ip runs into her neighbour, a Taiwanese woman. As they are talking, three men suddenly appeared and tried to kill them. The Taiwanese woman is killed but ...

Taipei Story (1985)

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander hi ...

The Bike & I (1984)

Taiwanese comedy film. ...

The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)

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, ...

That Day, on the Beach (1983)

Two friends who haven't seen each other for thirteen years reunite. One is a successful concert pianist just back from a European tour and the other has just started a new business. ...