Rated NR · 2 hr 4 min
Drama After spending much of the decade making films about Taiwan s complex and troubled history, Hou Hsiao Hsien turns his attention to its money-obsessed present with this gangster drama. Tattooed mobster, Kao (Jack Kao), and his quick-tempered, aptly named protégé, Flathead (Lim Giong), along with their girlfriends, Ying (Hsu Kuei-ying) and Pretzel (Annie Shizuka Inoh), are desperately trying to make it big. Their master plan is open a disco in Shanghai, but that scheme seems less and less likely with each call they get from their cell phone. Corrupt mainland potentates want a king s ransom in kickbacks while Pretzel racked up a king s ransom of debt herself at the mahjong table, prompting her to make a half-hearted suicide attempt. To make ends meet, these would-be entrepreneurs make a stab at swindling the government over swine selling sows when they are supposed to be the more valuable studs. They wine and dine the farmers in rural
Hou Hsiao-hsien wins award in US
Staff writer, with CNA
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has chosen Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) as a winner of this year’s Career Achievement Awards, crediting him as one of the world’s most influential filmmakers.
Hou “emerged as a leading figure in Taiwanese cinema in the 1980s and 1990s, and is now widely recognized as one of the world’s greatest, most influential filmmakers,” the association said in a statement on its Web site.
Over his 40-year career, he has directed features such as A Time to Live and A Time to Die (童年往事), The Puppetmaster (戲夢人生), Goodbye South, Goodbye (南國再見，南國), Flowers of Shanghai (海上花), Millennium Mambo (千禧曼波), Three Times (最好的時光) and Flight of the Red Balloon (紅氣球之旅), the association said.