Chu Tien-wen Movies

A freelance writer living in Tokyo defies social taboo by choosing life as a single mother in director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's meditative tribute to acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. When Yoko announces that she is pregnant and has no intentions of marrying the father of her child, her traditional family is outraged. Though the headstrong decision made by the young mother-to-be leaves her finding little sympathy from within her family circle, a blossoming friendship with the owner of a local second-hand bookstore goes a long way in alleviating Yoko's feelings of loneliness. As Yoko begins to re-evaluate her increasingly complicated life, her newfound friend silently pines for her despite his frustrating inability to vocalize his true feelings. ~ Jason Buchanan, 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

Master filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien directs this wistful story about lost love and lost innocence among Taiwan's working class. Wan (Wang Chien-wen) and Huen (Hsin Shu-feng) are high school sweethearts living in a down-and-out mining community of Jio-fen in Taiwan's backwaters. Too poor to continue their education, the two drop out of school and move to Taipei to find employment. When Wan's father learns of his son's decision, he simply says, "When you are willing to make yourself an ox, there will always be someone with a plow." Huen finds work as a seamstress. Wan becomes a printer's assistant and then a motorcycle delivery boy. The time passes as they work all day, pursue their studies at night school, and spend their scant free time drinking with their friends -- all working similarly menial jobs. One friend is beaten with an iron bar by his abusive boss; another has his finger chopped off in a machine. One by one, these friends are called up for their obligatory two years of military service. One day, while taking Huen shoe shopping, Wan has his bike stolen. Furious and out of a job, Wan wanders around the streets of Taipei until he contracts bronchitis. Huen lovingly nurses him back to health. Then he gets called up for military service. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Grandpa (Koo Chuen) and Grandma (Mei Fong) live in the fertile Taiwanese countryside. A boy (Wang Chi-Kwang) and his sister (Sun Cheeng-Lee) are packed off to their grandparents when their mother falls ill. Though relationships are strained at first, the boy and girl end up having a wonderful summer with grandpa, as the old man takes them on fishing trips and helps them in their search for a lost cow. Summer At Grandpa's didn't have a very long theatrical life in Taiwan, though it proved more successful on the international scene. The film's original title was Tung-Tung-Te-Chia-Ch'i, which in itself is reason enough to see it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this ethnic drama with a sketchy storyline but an engaging sense of time and place, three young men leave their rural island homes looking for better economic opportunities and perhaps a little more excitement. From their listless life on the small island of Fenggui, off the coast of Taiwan, the three arrive in the city of Gaoxiung where they find temporary shelter at the home of the sister of one of them. She also helps them get jobs in a factory -- a good sign for the future. As they settle into city life, the man next door takes off to evade the police who are after him, and his wife is left alone. She and one of the three men soon establish a tentative relationship -- though their future together seems uncertain. Director Hou Hsiao-hsien is well-recognized for his talent, and if viewers read between the lines they may see references to the split between native Taiwanese speaking their own languages and the mainland Mandarin speakers who invaded the island in 1949 to set up a government in exile. Antagonism between the Taiwanese, who were at first excluded from many important government jobs, and the mainland Chinese, who were at first foreigners, was an open and acknowledged problem for decades. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide