Three by Tsai Ming-liang
For the past 35 years, director Tsai has distinguished himself as one of the most tirelessly brilliant filmmakers in the world with his achingly empathetic, beautifully crafted films about love, longing, sex, and urban alienation, the through line between them his subtly expressive muse, Lee Kang-sheng. See three works by a modern master here.
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The Hole
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang | 89 mins | 1999
It’s the close of the millennium and Taipei has emptied out with the onset of a mysterious virus, but Lee Kang-sheng and Yang Kuei-mei lag behind among the ruins, where maybe a last chance at communication lies through a breach between their apartments... -
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang | 82 mins | 2003
Like the Royal Theater in The Last Picture Show and the title movie house in Cinema Paradiso, the Fu-Ho is shutting down for good. A palace with seemingly mile-wide rows of red velvet seats, the likes of which you’ve seen only in your most nostalgic dr... -
Days
Leaving May 1
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang | 127 mins | 2020
The parallel narratives of a middle-aged man seeking treatment for a chronic illness in Hong Kong (Lee Kang-sheng) and a Laotian immigrant in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) eventually, finally, meet in a moment of ecstatic release.