Yang Kuei-Mei Movies

An unrequited love affair is played out against tumultuous events in Asian history in this epic-scale historical drama. Qiushui (Chen Kun) is a teacher living and working in Taipei in the mid-1940. Qiushui meets Biyun (Vivian Hsu), a beautiful young woman from a wealthy family, when he's hired to tutor her. Qiushui soon falls head over heels for Biyun, and she clearly has feelings for him; however, Qiushui's close friend Zilu (Steven Cheung) is also infatuated with Biyun, and her father Wang Tingwu (Chin Han) isn't sure if Qiushui is a good match for his daughter. Despite it all, Qiushui and Biyun begin making plans to marry, but their hopes are dashed when the Taiwanese government begins a pogrom against those on the political left, and Qiushui's activism forces him to leave the country. Several years later, Qiushui is a medic tending to wounded soldiers in Korea, and an attractive woman named Jindi (Li Bingbing) is assigned to assist him. Jindi is quite taken with Qiushui, but he hasn't been able to forget Biyun, and Jindi finds using her feminine charm to make him forget his old love is an uphill struggle. Later, in the present day, the events of sixty years earlier take on a new importance as aging artist (Chang Gua Ahleh) and his niece Isabella Leong set out to find out what became of his brother Xue. The first co-production between producers from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Yun Shui Yao (English title: The Knot) was released simultaneously in all three nations, and became a major box-office success in China. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In a cavernous movie palace, King Hu's classic 1968 film Dragon Inn plays for a sparse crowd. As the movie progresses, the ticket-taker makes dinner, cleans the bathroom, and checks in on the projectionist. Audience members wander in and out, occasionally interacting in the restroom or the vast hallways that surround the theater proper. Minimally plotted, Tsai Ming-Liang's film is a poetic, dryly humorous portrait of a place and its denizens, and an homage to a director who influenced his career. ~ Tom Vick, Rovi

At the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, this Taiwanese-French drama won a FIPRESCI Award, given by international critics. Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang previously won top awards for his 1994 Vive l'amour (at Venice) and 1996 The River (at Berlin). High strangeness is evident in the tale, originally initiated as part of the French TV series of one-hour end-of-millennium dramas. As an epidemic spreads through Taipei, virus victims display odd symptoms. A man (Lee Kang-sheng) who runs a food store with few customers lives in a shabby building in a quarantined section, and a woman (Yang Kuei-mei) in the same building has a withdrawn existence. A plumber, checking a leak, makes a hole in the man's floor and leaves; the man then observes his neighbors through the hole. The film features four musical fantasy sequences that recall Hong Kong musical films of the '50s. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

The loves and travails of a Taipei schoolteacher provide the basis of this arty Taiwanese melodrama who gets romantically entangled with a ruthless local politician following the death of her brother. Though Jane Yu knows that Xian Guo-chien is married and obsessed with furthering himself in politics, she takes comfort from their trysts, but things go awry after she learns that he has staged an assassination attempt on himself to bolster his standing in the polls. This opens her eyes to her lover's true character. At the same time, she also contends with a suicidal student, a dubious business opportunity and the good-looking lounge singer who wants her love. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A notable entry among the many action films released in Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s, this is director He Ping's homage to swashbuckling epics and American westerns. Most of the film occurs in the canyon of the title, rendered in Mandarin as Riguang Xiagu. A traveling mercenary known as the Avenger arrives in the valley to settle an old score. He befriends the widowed owner of the local inn and her son while waiting for his enemy to arrive. The Avenger also meets up with Crazy Man (Ku Feng), an old warrior who has been waiting for years for his enemies to come to the canyon and in the meantime has become a devout Buddhist. Crazy Man's foes arrive, and the Avenger joins in the battle on his behalf. His experiences in the valley lead the Avenger to question the purpose of his life as a fighter. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

This second film by prominent Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang is a brilliant portrayal of isolation and urban disillusionment in modern Taipei. The movie focuses on three lonely souls: Hsiao-kang, a gay salesman of crematorium niches who wanders the city on his scooter; Ah-jung, a handsome street hawker of counterfeit designer goods; and May Lin, a struggling real estate agent. Hsiao-kang sneaks into a vacant apartment with a stolen key, takes a bath, and tries to slash his wrists. Meanwhile, May picks up Ah-jung and enters the same flat for a late-night tryst. As the film progresses, each character goes through the tedium of their lives: May waits in empty houses for prospective clients; Ah-jung hawks his wares while avoiding the police, and Hsiao-kang places fliers in anonymous mailboxes. All three use the unoccupied apartment at various times for their own needs without realizing the presence of the others, until Hsiao-kang and Ah-jung run into each other. After they both flee the place when May arrives, they develop an odd sort of friendship. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

The period of Japanese rule over the island of Taiwan is still a potent memory for its residents, as is evidenced by this drama. In the story, a couple of brothers (Peng Chia-chia and Huang Pin-yuan) are lured away from their everyday lives to work at a Japanese-run gold mine in the town of Chiu-fen. One of them falls in love with the housekeeper for the mine's brothel (Ch'en Hsien-mei), the other develops a cozy relationship with his landlady, an enterprising widow (Yang Kuei-mei). Conditions in the town and at the mine are difficult enough to begin with, as the Japanese are harsh overlords. When they start raiding the brothel to make body searches of mine workers in order to try to find smuggled gold, the indignity of this leads to several violent protests by the miners and an even harsher crackdown by the authorities. Aginst this background, the love story continues. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi