A City of Sadness (1989)

Highly Recommended

Taiwan/Hong Kong

Feature Film

Original Title: 悲情城市

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien

Writers: Chu T'ien-wen, Wu Nien-Jen

Cinematographer: Chen Huai-en

Composers: S.E.N.S.

Cast: Li Tianlu, Chen Sung Young, Gao Chieh, Tony Leung, Wu I-fang, Xin Shufen, Chen Shu-fang, Ko Su-yun, Lin Li-ching, Ho, Ai-yun, Kenny Cheung, Yang Chang-chieng

Hou’s leisurely paced, Golden Lion winning film takes a sprawling and epic yet intimate look at the liberation of Taiwan from Japan in 1945 and the subsequent unrest caused by the Chinese Civil War, looking at it through the eyes of one particular family and its four disparate brothers, beautifully taking in scenes of great tenderness and brutal violence. Iain.Stott