Jack Kao Movies

Elements of the typical detective story blend with comedy and melodrama in this tale of a Taipei man who longs to patch up his relationship with his estranged wife, yet finds his noble efforts sabotaged when he steps out of his car to purchase a cake, and another driver parks him in. It's Mother's Day in Taipei, and Chen Mo is eager to patch things up with his beloved wife. In order to start things off on the right foot, Chen Mo stops by the local bakery to pick up a cake. Unfortunately, that's just about the time another driver chooses to double-park in the space next to him, effectively blocking him in. The driver of the other car is nowhere to be found, and Chen Mo searches every floor of the adjacent parking building to no avail. In the course of his quest, Chen mo encounters a series of quirky characters including a one-armed barbershop owner with a fondness for fish head soup, and a mainland prostitute on the run from her pimp. In time Chen Mo finds the driver of the offending car, and invites his newfound friends along as he prepares to drive off into new horizons. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien directs this look at life in modern Taipei, the first part of a planned series. The film opens with a vivacious lass named Vicky (Shu Qi) sauntering down a neon-lit tunnel as the voice-over describes how she is going to break up with her on and off boyfriend Hao Hao once she has spent the NT$500,000 in her bank account. A young free spirit and party girl, she makes a living for both her and Hao Hao (Tuan Chun-hao) by working at a hostess bar. Lazy, neurotic, and pathologically jealous, Hao Hao spends his time DJ-ing and smoking speed when he is not rifling through Vicky's belongings looking for some hint of infidelity. At work, she meets Jack (played by Hou regular Jack Kao), a businessman with strong links to the mafia who nonetheless is kind and nurturing to Vicky. They soon begin an ambiguous affair. This film was screened at the 2001 Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Hou Hsiao-hsien (Goodbye South, Goodbye) directed this Taiwanese-Japanese period drama set in the British section brothels of 19th-century Shanghai. Chu Tien-wen's screenplay was adapted from Han Ziyun's 1894 novel Haishang Huia Liezhuang (Biographies of Flowers of Shanghai), translated from the original dialect to Mandarin during the '30s by Shanghai writer Eileen Chang. Around 1884, during the closing years of Imperial China, Crimson (Japanese actress Michiko Hada) worries that she's about to be dropped by civil servant Wang (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), since he's spending so much time with Jasmin (Wei Hsiao-hui). Emotions escalate when word arrives that Wang will relocate to another post in the Canton province. Shown in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Hou Hsiao Hsien rounds out his loose trilogy on Taiwanese history -- The Puppet Master dealt with Japan's occupation of the island and City of Sadness focuses on Chiang Kai-shek's bloody occupation immediately following the war -- with this mediation on the anti-Communist campaign during the 1950s. The story is ostensibly about the real life events of Chiang Bi-yu (Annie Shizuka Inoh), who ventures to China with her new husband, Chung Hao-tung (Lim Giong), to join the anti-Japanese resistance along with three other friends. Once in China, they are immediately suspected of being Japanese spies and are almost executed. While working with the resistance, Chiang is forced to give up her first-born child -- the call of the motherland had no time for motherhood. When the war ends, they return to Taiwan. Chung takes a job as the principal of a school in the south of the island and starts a Marxist journal called the Enlightenment. As the Red Army swept down the Korean peninsula, Chiang Kai-shek -- at the behest of the Americans -- instituted the White Terror, which rooted out communists of every color. Soon Chung and Chiang are rounded up and brutally interrogated. Chiang is eventually released to her small brood of children while Chung is thrown against the wall and shot. Hou complicates this narrative by layering an additional story line about an actress, Liang Ching (also played by Annie Shizuka Inoh), who is rehearsing for a movie about the life of Chiang Bi-yu. Still reeling from the murder of her gangster boyfriend, Ah Wei (Jack Kao), three years previous, Liang is being faxed daily pages of her stolen diary, forcing her to confront her past. Soon the borders between the lives of Chiang and Liang become less and less distinct. This film was dubbed the single best film of the 1990s by Cahier du Cinema. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Seen through the prism of the Lin family, this complex family drama from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao Hsien details a brief but crucial moment in Taiwanese history between 1945, when 50 years of Japanese colonial rule came to an end, and 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Kuomintang forces established a government-in-exile after the Communist army captured mainland China. The film opens with the reedy voice of Emperor Hirohito announcing Japan's surrender as the eldest of the Lin clan's four sons awaits the birth of his child in a coastal town not far from Taipei. Soon afterward, he changes the name of his Japanese decorated bar to "Little Shanghai" and begins trading in the post-war black market. The second son has died in Philippines during the war. The third son, who had a nervous breakdown in Shanghai, starts to consort with Shanghaiese drug dealers upon his return to Taiwan. Once the eldest learns of the third's dealings, he forces him to stop. In retaliation, the Shanghaiese mob arranges for the third son to be imprisoned on trumped up charges of collaboration with the Japanese. The youngest son, Wen-ching, is a gentle deaf-mute photographer who has leftist leanings. The film climaxes with the notorious Incident of February 28, 1947, a Tiananmen Square-style massacre of native Taiwanese committed by Kuomintang troops resulting in between 18,000 to 28,000 causalities. The wounded pour into the neighbor clinic as Wen-ching and his friend Hinoe get arrested. After his release, Hinoe heads for the mountains to join the leftist guerillas while Wen-ching promises to look after his friend's sister Hinomi. Soon after, Wen-ching and Hinomi marry. Just as she is about to bear a child, however, the Kuomintang arrests Wen-ching for his involvement with the guerillas. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide