The pop-star leads from Hou’s first feature, Cute Girl, are reunited in the director’s follow-up, a brisk work of bubble-gum romance that begins to experiment with the rules of the genre. This time, Taiwanese singing sensation Feng Fei-fei plays Hsing-hui, a trendy photographer visiting a seaside village in Penghu with her successful boss/fiancé. When she happens upon a flute-playing medic blinded in an ambulance crash (Kenny Bee), sparks fly, songs are sung, and she’s left with the tough decision of who to say “I do” to. Despite the eye-rolling premise, Hou infuses the film with enough formal ingenuity (long takes, telephoto lenses, on-location shooting) that a case can be made for its auteurial significance.
Tag: 1980s
An ageing American cartoonists, Joey Wellman, makes a visit to Paris to attend an exhibition of his work. He plans to meet up with his daughter, Elsie, who is studying at the Sorbonne, but she has little respect for her father and fails to keep the rendez-vous. By chance, Wellman meets and is befriended by a celebrated academic, Christian Gauthier, an admirer of his work and, ironically, the man whom Welmman’s daughter has desperately been trying to meet for the past few months. Although he is feeling increasingly uneasy with French culture, Wellman reluctantly agrees to accept an invitation to spend the weekend with Gauthier and his entourage…
In 1650, a group of Brazilian slaves revolt and escape from their sugar plantation to the depths of the jungle, where they join other runaways. Under the leadership of Ganga Bumba, the men are able to carve out a place to live, repelling attempts by their Portuguese masters to recapture them. The community is further strengthened by the return of Zumbi, kidnapped from them as a child, who comes back to command their military.
A quack dentist is mistaken by a corrupt Dutch Colonel for one of Napoleons Inspector Generals during Napoleons occupation in 1811. What follows is a hilarious feast of similar misunderstandings and is only meant for those with a good sense of humor.
British politician Clara Paige will do anything to get ahead, often to the detriment of her relationship with her husband, Gerald. When Clara believes that former business partner Michael Swanton is blackmailing her, she ruthlessly murders him, and enters an even more tangled situation as his daughter seeks her help in finding him. As the murderous plot thickens, Gerald has a surprising revelation that will further complicate Clara’s life.
A young man, short of money, is persuaided into looking after the business of a local drug dealer for a week or two. Up until then, the guy had been an honest and clean of drugs, but when he spends his days surrounded by riches and drugs, he cannot resist… and neither can his addict wife.
Down-on-his-luck widower Marvin meets Tige, an 11-year-old boy distraught in the wake of his mother’s death. Despite a rocky introduction, Marvin soon develops a close bond with the youngster and decides to adopt him. But, because the vagrant Marvin is financially unstable, he is unable to adequately care for the child. So Tige’s biological father, Richard, who is unaware of his son’s existence, is located and asked to take care of the boy.