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Essential Taiwanese Cinema

Essential Taiwanese Cinema
  1. A Brighter Summer Day poster
    A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
    Edward Yang · 45 critic votes
    Streaming on Criterion Channel, YouTube TV
    A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.
  2. Yi Yi poster
    Yi Yi (2000)
    Edward Yang · 41 critic votes
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    A Taipei family faces personal and moral uncertainty as everyday events test their relationships and sense of purpose.
  3. Goodbye, Dragon Inn poster
    Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 30 critic votes
    Streaming on Kanopy, Metrograph, Kino Film Collection
    On a dark, wet night in Taipei City, a cavernous old picture palace is about to close its doors forever. A meager audience, the remaining few staff, and perhaps even a ghost or two, watch King Hu’s wuxia classic "Dragon Inn", each haunted by memories and desires evoked by cinema itself.
  4. A City of Sadness poster
    A City of Sadness (1989)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 22 critic votes
    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.
  5. A Touch of Zen poster
    A Touch of Zen (1971)
    King Hu · 13 critic votes
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    Yang Hui-zhen, a mysterious princess on the run from corrupt government officials, is joined in her endeavors by skilled Buddhist monks and an unambitious painter named Gu Sheng-zhai.
  6. Flowers of Shanghai poster
    Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 13 critic votes
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    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 brothels, these establishments are the only ones that these men can visit. They form a self-contained world, with its own rites, traditions and even its own language. The men don’t only visit the houses to frequent the courtesans but also to dine, smoke opium, play mahjong and relax. The women working there are known as the “flowers of Shanghai”.
  7. The Puppetmaster poster
    The Puppetmaster (1993)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 11 critic votes
    Master puppeteer Li Tien-lu recalls his life in Japanese-occupied Taiwan during the first half of the 20th century.
  8. Millennium Mambo poster
    Millennium Mambo (2001)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 11 critic votes
    Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, Kino Film Collection
    In 2011, Vicky looks back on her life a decade earlier, recalling her turbulent relationship with her controlling boyfriend Hao Hao and her growing connection to a compassionate gangster amid the neon haze of Taipei's nightlife.
  9. The Time to Live and the Time to Die poster
    The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 8 critic votes
    An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China.
  10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon poster
    Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
    Ang Lee · 8 critic votes
    Free on YouTube Free · Streaming on Sony Pictures Core Amazon Channel
    Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.
  11. Vive L'Amour poster
    Vive L'Amour (1994)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 7 critic votes
    Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Film Movement Plus
    Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.
  12. Dragon Gate Inn poster
    Dragon Gate Inn (1967)
    King Hu · 5 critic votes
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    China, year 1457. The Minister of Defense is executed, and his children are sentenced to exile by order of the tyrannical Tsao. Fearful of future revenge from the young people, Tsao sends cruel soldiers to murder them, but a brave group of swordsmen can change the course of the battle at the Dragon Inn.
  13. Taipei Story poster
    Taipei Story (1984)
    Edward Yang · 5 critic votes
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    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 his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.
  14. The Terrorizers poster
    The Terrorizers (1986)
    Edward Yang · 5 critic votes
    An uncompromising look into urban life from the eyes of a voyeuristic photographer, a rebellious teenager, and a married couple teetering on the edge of adultery.
  15. The Hole poster
    The Hole (1998)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 5 critic votes
    Streaming on Kanopy, OVID, Metrograph
    In the final days of the year 1999, almost everyone in Taiwan has died from a strange plague that ravished the island. As rain pours down relentlessly, a single man is stuck with an unfinished plumbing job and a hole in his floor. This results in a very odd relationship with the woman who lives below him.
  16. Stray Dogs poster
    Stray Dogs (2013)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 5 critic votes
    Streaming on Kanopy
    An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.
  17. The Assassin poster
    The Assassin (2015)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 4 critic votes
    Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, MUBI, Kanopy
    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 in a task, she is sent back by her mistress to the land of her birth, with orders to kill the man to whom she was promised – a cousin who now leads the largest military region in North China. After 13 years of exile, the young woman must confront her parents, her memories and her long-repressed feelings.
  18. Rebels of the Neon God poster
    Rebels of the Neon God (1992)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 3 critic votes
    Streaming on Kanopy, MUBI Amazon Channel, OVID
    In Taipei, four youths face alienation, loneliness, and moments of existential crisis amidst a series of minor crimes.
  19. The River poster
    The River (1997)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 3 critic votes
    A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.
  20. What Time Is It There? poster
    What Time Is It There? (2001)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 3 critic votes
    A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.
  21. Café Lumière poster
    Café Lumière (2004)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 3 critic votes
    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 used bookstore owner who aids her research.
  22. Three Times poster
    Three Times (2005)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 3 critic votes
    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.
  23. Lust, Caution poster
    Lust, Caution (2007)
    Ang Lee · 3 critic votes
    During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.
  24. Days poster
    Days (2020)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 3 critic votes
    Streaming on Fandor Amazon Channel, Metrograph, Philo
    Kang lives alone in a big house, Non in a small apartment in town. They meet, and then part, their days flowing on as before.
  25. Dust in the Wind poster
    Dust in the Wind (1986)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 2 critic votes
    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. They fail to see time and fate are beyond their control.
  26. The Taste of Watermelon poster
    The Taste of Watermelon (2004)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 2 critic votes
    Hsiao-Kang, now working as an adult movie actor, meets Shiang-chyi once again. Meanwhile, the city of Taipei faces a water shortage that makes the sales of watermelons skyrocket.
  27. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone poster
    I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 2 critic votes
    Rawang, an immigrant from Bangladesh living in awful conditions, takes pity on a Chinese man, Hsiao-kang, who is beaten up and left in the street. Rawang lovingly nurses him on a mattress he found. When he is almost healed, Hsiao-kang meets the waitress Chyi. His love for Rawang is put to the test.
  28. Liu Pi-Chia poster
    Liu Pi-Chia (1967)
    Richard Yao-chi CHEN · 1 critic vote
    LIU PI-CHIA, a biographical documentary depicting the life of a veteran who joined tens of thousands of others to work on national infrastructure construction projects in the 1960s, is considered Taiwan’s first cinéma vérité film.
  29. The Boys from Fengkuei poster
    The Boys from Fengkuei (1983)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 1 critic vote
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    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, and Ah-Ching is attracted to the girlfriend of a neighbor. There they face the harsh realities of the big city.
  30. Daughter of the Nile poster
    Daughter of the Nile (1987)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 1 critic vote
    Free on Tubi TV
    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, who are slipping into a life of crime.
  31. A Confucian Confusion poster
    A Confucian Confusion (1994)
    Edward Yang · 1 critic vote
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    Over the course of a few days, the paths of a group of young friends, lovers, and acquaintances in Taipei intersect, prompting them to arrive at realizations about their lives.
  32. Goodbye South poster
    Goodbye South (1996)
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 1 critic vote
    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 promise to get the gang nowhere fast.
  33. Mahjong poster
    Mahjong (1996)
    Edward Yang · 1 critic vote
    Streaming on Criterion Channel
    Amid a rapidly changing cityscape, the lives of a disparate group of swindlers, hustlers, gangsters, and expats collide, with a naive French teenager and a sensitive young local who tries to protect her caught dangerously in the middle.
  34. Journey to the West poster
    Journey to the West (2014)
    Tsai Ming-liang · 1 critic vote
    In 2014, Tsai Ming-Liang was invited to make a film for the MarseilleFID, Marseille International Film Festival. Since he was not familiar with Marseille, he decided to make a film as tourist, capturing the beautiful Mediterranean sunshine in the late summer of that year. He also invited famous French actor, Denis Lavant, to appear alongside Lee Kang-Sheng playing Xuanzang. "Journey to the West" was invited to be the opening short film at the Berlin International Film Festival the same year.
  35. The Great Buddha+ poster
    The Great Buddha+ (2017)
    Huang Hsin-yao · 1 critic vote
    Streaming on Kanopy
    Security guard Pickle and his trash collector friend Belly Button kill time together in night shifts watching the American-educated boss's dash-cam recordings of his various sexual encounters with women. Against the buddies' will, something horrifying rather than erotic reveals.
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