Movies: Hou Hsiao-hsien

The first part in a new series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, 'Flight of the Red Balloon' tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. The film was shot in August and September 2006 on location in Paris. This...

Vicky recalls her romances with her exes Hao Hao and Jack in the neon-lit clubs of Taipei....

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained....

The daughter of a wealthy man takes French lessons so she can go to France with her fiancée, but ends up falling for a poor man who studies civil engineering....

The story follows a young man as he changes from an intelligently aware youth, to a teenager with much less confidence than he once had, and finally, to a stable adult....

Composed of three separate stories, the film vividly portrays Taiwan during the cold war period when the country developed its economy with help from the United States....

A group of young Taipei residents is drawn into the city’s underworld through the growing obsession of one, the boyish Ah-feng, for the sexy Cantonese mistress of a gang boss....

Ah-Ching and his friends have just finished school in their island fishing village, and now spend most of their time drinking and fighting. Three of them decide to go to the port city of Kaohsiung to look for work. They find an apartment through rela...

One of the best-known Chinese figurative painters, Liu Xiaodong goes back to his hometown of Jincheng, in the province of Liaoning (North-East China), to re-paint again friends and relatives after several years have gone by. With a soundtrack by fame...

At the end of the 19th century, Shanghai is divided into several foreign concessions. In the British concession, a number of luxurious “flower houses” are reserved for the male elite of the city. Since Chinese dignitaries are not allowed to frequent ...

A romance about a girl who falls in love and marries a music teacher. The couple struggle through life as the man does not want to accept money from his rich father....

A-yuan and A-yun are both from the small mining town of Jio-fen. They move to Taipei, where A-yuan is an apprentice by day and goes to night school, and A-yun works as a helper at a tailors. Everyone thinks they are meant for each other, and so do th...

A substitute teacher from Taipei arrives in a country village to teach a class of mischievous students. He soon falls in love with nature, country life and a fellow teacher at the school....

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day....

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit ...

9th century China. Ten year old general’s daughter Nie Yinniang is abducted by a nun who initiates her into the martial arts, transforming her into an exceptional assassin charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt local governors. One day, having fa...

An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China....

Set in the island Kinmen, often seen as the most dangerous military base because it’s geographically close to China, "Paradise in Service" follows the adventure of a boy who serves his military service in Unit 831 from 1969 to 1972, in preparation fo...

A coming-of-age story about a young brother and sister whom spend a pivotal summer in the country with their grandparents....

A photographer travels with her boyfriend to a seaside village in Penghu. There she strikes up a relationship with a blind man. When they reencounter one another back in Taipei, where he is preparing to undergo an operation to restore his sight, thei...