Original subtitles

HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien

by Olivier Assayas

A Time to Live, A Time to Die (1985)

This film is about my childhood,

and my memory of my father.

He was from Meixian, a district in the province of Guangdong.

In 1947, 40 days after I was born, he led a basketball team to Guangzhou,

for the Guangdong Area Games.

He was Meixian's commissioner for education.

In Guangzhou, he ran into an old school pal, Li Gui.

Li was then Mayor of Taichung, Taiwan.

He invited my father to come to Taiwan to be his executive secretary.

A year later, my father wrote home to us from Taiwan:

He said, "I live well here, there is running tap water."

and that he wanted the family to join him.

In 1949, my father was transferred to Taipei, and made commissioner for education.

Our home was in Hsin-chu.

The weather in northern Taiwan was extremely humid,

and my father was troubled by asthma attacks.

We moved to Fengshan when I was in first grade,

hoping the move south might improve his health.

My grandmother used to make lots of silver offerings,

to be used for her stay in the afterlife.

She was over 80 years old then.

My father was a good son.

He would not start dinner without her,

but she never started it until she got me home.

She dooted on me a lot, because a fortune teller once told her

that I would grow up to be powerful.

Her pet name for me was A-ha,

which stuck and soon everyone called me it.

Taiwan and its capital Taipei, are located on the south eastern coast of China.

Japan colonised the island in 1885 before surrendering it in 1945.

By the end of the 1949 civil war, with the impending victory of the Communists,

the Kuomintang's nationalist army withdrew to Taiwan.

Taipei was named the capital of the 'Republic of China' in exile.

With the support of the United States, Chiang Kai-shek marshalled an army

oriented towards the hypothetical goal of reconquering the mainland.

Martial law, limiting freedom of expression

and prohibiting any political opposition was maintained until 1987.

A-Ha!

Who's turn now?

It's mine, I won!

This here is Kaohsiung.

Later we'll arrive in Fengshan.

It's straight ahead, this direction.

Kaohsiung is the largest city in the south.

Fengshan is nearby.

In the past, it was a 20-minute bus ride.

And then we rode bikes to school.

Sometimes we walked there.

There was a track through the paddies, a track leading to the school.

I loved walking through the rice fields because,

on harvest day, we would often see a man catching birds.

We called him the 'Birdman'.

Like in my film,

A Summer at Grandpa's.

In that film, he would set up a trap,

a huge net,

and then he would blow on a tiny whistle.

The sparrows would fly down

into the net

Once caught, there was no escape.

He wore a wide brim hat and off it came to scoop up the birds.

Then "pop"... he'd snap their necks.

He never wanted the birds alive, he'd sell them to barbecue vendors.

This is Fengshan temple, we enter through there.

In the past, it was the residence of the county chief.

Once there was this large garden,

and next to it, a huge mango tree.

The wall was here,

and the mango tree was here...

There was a garden, trees,

artificial rocks...

I would slip inside through this alley,

and I climbed the mango tree.

Right about there...

was the mango tree.

I'd steal the mangoes.

I ate some of them quite leisurely,

pocketed others and then I was off.

From the top of the tree, I strongly felt space and time.

And I also felt a...

... certain loneliness. Yeah, I felt a strong sense of solitude.

This left a deep impression on me.

Maybe that's why that I took to filmmaking.

As if, from a given angle, you can stop and experience sense of being,

and feel immersed in space and time.

This temple

is surrounded by a network of alleys.

When we were fighting,

and the cops were trying to catch us,

we'd escape through the small pathways in the alleys.

As a child with all my time ahead of me,

I'd always come here.

When I was a teenager, all my friends were here too.

We'd chat, make bets,

eat sugar cane, anything really.

There used to be a big tree there, one over there too.

We'd hang up a pair of gymnastic rings,

and we'd try doing sports like that.

Or we would sing.

Do you see the stage?

It is in this temple that the regional competition

for the seven south opera companies was held:

Glove puppets, marionettes, theatre, Taiwanese opera...

The season could last up to two months.

When someone dies,

their soul comes to the temple.

Look at this inscription.

It means: "You are here".

When you are dead, you come here.

"You are coming," you were destined to come.

Inside, there is a large abacus,

as those who serve to do the accounts.

It takes stock of the good and bad deeds.

When I was a kid, I heard it said

that at night you could hear the sound of the abacus clicking.

The midnight count!

You've been here since 1949, right?

Since 1954.

1954? How old are you?

80 years old.

- I am Old Chen. - I know!

- And who are you? - I am Aha.

Have you forgotten?

I have often thought of you!

At first glance, I didn't recognize you.

I have grown old!

Some said you came here to shoot a film.

It slipped my mind!

I am too old...

- Do you make nice films? - Yes.

No one comes back anymore?

I went to see Ah-Fu.

Shui-tsai doesn't live here anymore?

Shui-tsai lived behind the station.

- Has he moved? - He left.

- The factory has closed. - To-hsi is dead.

- Who? - To-hsi.

The big brother of Shui-tsai?

- How? Was he ill? - Yes, of illness.

Chong-yuan is dead too, he was...

He was murdered.

- He was gunned down by Chih-shan? - Yes, right.

People of my father's generation,

like old Chen; on arrival in Taiwan,

thought it would be a short stay, no more than two or three years.

But there you have it: at 80 years old, he's still stuck here.

My father, when he first came here, thought he'd work for a few years

and then we'd leave and return home.

All the furniture he bought then was makeshift stuff.

Bamboo, the cheapest and the simplest.

He thought, he felt like...

there was no family graveyard.

It was not his home country.

Assayas: Had China left a major impression on your father during his youth?

No, not at all.

Every day my grandmother

prepared for our return to the mainland.

She would say to me: ''Come, let's go that way.''

She believed Guangdong was just around the corner!

She wanted to die in her homeland.

In 1981 or 1982, I went to Hong Kong for the first time.

A festival of Taiwanese cinema had been organised.

We all wanted to see films from the mainland.

Such films were banned here in Taiwan.

Even in Hong Kong we had to see them in secret.

Many of us saw the mainland films and we were all deeply moved.

Not by the plot or the stories they were telling,

but more by the language and the tongue,

as well as the landscapes that we saw.

I understood when I saw them, that my early education

cultivated in me a mental universe formed under the influence of the mainland.

There was this profound excitement about seeing your native land.

Assayas: Does he consider himself a Chinese or Taiwanese filmmaker?

I'm a Taiwanese director.

From a cultural point of view,

you can't deny that you are Chinese.

But in the current context,

the political reality...

with this separation into two nations,

you also cannot deny that you are Taiwanese.

I am a Taiwanese director.

Our esteemed director is here!

I grew up with you,

fighting and gambling!

I started gambling because of Lo-kuo.

When I was in the first grade, he took me home to gamble, starting with marbles.

Where's Wu-hsiung? Is he still here?

The family house is still here, but he moved to Niaosong long ago.

Wu-hsiong was a slick guy.

Here are the king size marbles.

Our balls were different. They were much smaller.

They are bigger now. These are standard.

They were made of glass, out of soda bottles.

Shall we play a game of spinning top?

A-Ha Ku!

A-Ha!

Assayas: His friends from back then, have they all become gangsters?

A few of them, yes. But the groups aren't run like a...

a well-oiled organisation.

They existed more as enforcement if something arose in the neighbourhood.

As society evolved, the underworld became highly complex,

because the interests at stake were increasingly important,

such as the engineering projects in this place.

They took advantage of the opportunities to get into construction

and getting others to invest in the projects taking place here.

With these benefits, others want to come and get a taste.

Add to this generalised trafficking,

in particular drug smuggling,

each aided by advanced transportation and sophisticated communication networks.

The range of influence is always expanding,

becoming so complex that everyone is involved.

For some, this process is deadly.

They die from drug use, or get killed in shootings,

as my friends just informed me.

My elder sister and brother were convinced

that I was a hopelesss case.

I gambled away the family's money.

Many things of this nature.

When it came time for the draft,

I was very happy to join the army.

I had this self-awareness that I had to break with my previous life - ka-cha!

It was overwhelming.

There was a mountain of receipts from the pawnshop.

I'd taken valuables from home,

my father's watch, for example,

and sold them off.

At that time I left everything behind and tore up all the receipts.

In the army, I decided to make films.

On Sundays, on leave,

I went to the cinema, and I sometimes saw

four films in a day.

So I decided that when I got out of the military,

I would go into the film industry,

whether I went to film school or not.

Back then, I had no clear concept of anything at all,

I just liked movies.

If the question was asked, "What exactly do you want to do?"

I actually had no idea.

I started working

as soon as I left university

as an assistant and scriptwriter, without thinking about becoming...

a director.

At the very beginning, I wanted to be an actor.

During my studies, I participated

in the preliminary round of a singing competition.

I loved singing, but I was nervous.

I seized up with stage fright.

It was in this grand hall. My voice was gone.

The first step was singing acapella,

and if you had talent, you could get to the first round with accompanying music.

I was eliminated in the preliminaries.

Translator: Was it cancelled later?

No, but there were no more contests for me, ever.

In my early days, I discovered that the major actors, the big stars

had to be 6 feet tall

and very handsome.

Since I'm that short, I knew acting wasn't for me,

so I decided to work behind the scenes.

However, films at that time were commercially oriented

It had to be funny, comedic.

You had to make them very funny.

So, my first and second films

were both funny and made a lot of money.

Assayas: They were comedies?

Comedies.

A-Digu!

A-Digu, hurry up!

A-Digu!

A Summer at Grandpa's 1984

My father's family retreated with the nationalists from Shandong, in 1949.

My mother's family, in her words, it was almost...

100 years ago when they migrated from Guangdong province

and settled here.

Chu Tien-wen Screenwriter

Probably because my father and mother both wrote manuscripts,

many of the friends who visited our house

all belonged to the literary world.

Whether it be writing essays or novels.

This likely influenced me.

I started writing in secret.

Then I submitted some of it to the local newspapers.

I don't know if the editor knows us or what, I just used my name.

After this, I naturally kept writing.

I started when I was 15.

Next, the newspaper published a 5000 word story,

"Xiao Bi's Story"

Hou read it and was interested.

He wanted to buy the rights and adapt it to film.

At that time, there was no such thing as buying copyrights in Taiwan.

When we made an appointment, my parents were very worried.

They coached me on what to do and what to say

It was said that people in the film industry were very devious

and difficult to work with.

So I dressed myself up to look older.

I think I wore high heels and a skirt.

But when I saw Hou, this idea totally evaporated...

I thought...

he was nothing like our imaginary filmmaker.

Since our ideas were so closely aligned, our first collaboration was very pleasant.

I first came across Chu Tien-wen in a newspaper,

when I read her novelette 'Love Story', right?

- 'Love Story', right? - Right.

I used it as the scenario for the film Growing Up.

I thought the story was really good, so I called her.

We met in an old café in Taipei.

We hit it off immediately as we spoke,

and so I asked her to help me with the script.

The film was well received and made quite a bit of money,

so, for her, she got sucked into screenwriting and couldn't get away.

and our collaboration continues to this day.

- If it hadn't done so well... - That would have been the end of it.

Ever since our work together began with Growing Up,

she has worked on each and every script for my films.

The Boys from Fengkui captured some of my early life,

while A Summer at Grandpa's, was inspired by her own.

Between the films, we began to gradually come to understand

that our families were quite different from one another.

Our upbringings were quite distinct.

It became really clear when filming A Summer at Grandpa's at her home.

Her grandpa,

her grandfather had an old motorbike that was 40 or 50 years old.

There was a clock that was similarly old.

The grandfather also had an old gramophone...

At the time, everything was about half a century old.

Now it's all about 60 years old.

Looking at all these belongings,

you come to see how much our elders

must have treasured them.

Additionally,

although Tien-wen is a child of the Mainland on her father's side.

However, her maternal grandparents are natives,

and so you can feel like you really belong to this place,

and experience a sense of stablility rooted in living here for generations.

In the case of my own family, everything was different.

For my parents,

everything was temporary, from the furniture to the house itself.

With this psychology at work,

you felt like you were going to leave at any moment.

The constant doubt and anxiety...

ate away at me without really knowing it.

Understanding another's family background,

can help you understand your own.

So I decided that I would film my own life story,

A Time to Live, A Time to Die.

While I was shooting A Summer at Grandpa's and The Boys from Fengkuei back to back,

a lot of those who had studied the cinema abroad returned.

They began sharing what they learned, "This is a master shot, this is this and so on".

It became clear that there were many ways to shoot films that left me at a loss.

At this time, the script for The Boys from Fengkuei was ready,

it was written and complete.

However, I didn't know how to put the script on film.

Tien-wen listened to my concerns

and agreed that something may not be right.

Then she gave me a book to read.

It's name was 'The Autobiography of Shen Congwen'.

After finishing it,

I felt it had a strange but intuitive structure.

It has a standpoint,

a point of view.

The view is looking down upon all events.

Looking down and observing all the woes of the world

and watching objectively.

There was an extreme breadth of mind.

When I was shooting The Boys from Fengkuei

I kept saying to the photographer,

"Back a little, back a little."

Chu: And detached.

"More detached, More detached."

One year after The Boys from Fengkuei,

it was time to shoot A Summer at Grandpa's.

I was facing the problem of form again.

What stylistic choices can I make to express the story?

As before then, form had never been an issue on my mind.

It was then on one occasion when I was at Edward Yang's house,

that he showed me Pasolini's Oedipus Rex.

I watched the film and I thought,

"Wow, it's so clear."

I totally understood why the director was choosing his shots and perspectives.

The point of view,

whether it's the objective one,

or the ''subjective'' view of the character,

and sharing what the actor or actress sees.

This is point of view.

After the film, I felt – "Ah!"

My feeling, when I was shooting A Summer at Grandpa's,

was that there were three points of view or perspectives in the film.

The objective one, that of the filmmaker, me.

What the director's mind and eyes think and see.

The other is that of the actor.

What the characters' mind and eyes think and see.

Actually, there are only two.

There aren't three perspectives, there are only two.

A-Gong, have you seen A Summer at Grandpa's?

Yes.

Yes, he did. He saw it in Taipei.

Right.

Have you seen A Summer at Grandpa's?

I can't recall.

When the film was being screened in Taipei.

I took my grandparents to see it.

They said it was done beautifully!

After you saw A Summer at Grandpa's

what did you think?

This is hopeless.

I remember...

I remember him saying after the screening

"My goodness, the house in the film is more beautiful than in real life!"

That was then.

Later he felt that it was a good memorial,

because the area has changed completely since.

The first time Hou and I met was in 1980.

It was shortly after I first entered the film world.

I'd just entered the industry

and began work as a screenwriter at Central Motion Picture

Wu Nien-Jen Director and screenwriter

Central Motion Picture was in reality a Kuomintang propaganda agency.

Before the abolition of martial law in 1987,

it was the largest production company in Taiwan,

and already, before I joined, a partly state-run company.

It's strange that I got a job there at all,

as it was a very conservative organisation

and many of the films produced beforehand were heavily propagandistic.

In 1980, Ming Ji was appointed the new director of Central Motion Picture,

and was of the view that Taiwanese films were entirely lacking

and that the industry was in need of new blood.

A lot of my friends tried to dissuade me

as many at the time opposed the Kuomintang.

They'd say, "Why are you, a novelist, working for the Kuomintang?"

However, at that time in Taiwan, novelists were subject to strict censorship.

As a result, I thought that literature was too limited,

and that the cinema was more likely to affect the greatest number of people.

It just so happened that a number of filmmakers had returned home from the USA.

It was serendipitous that we were looking for them and they us,

so we looked at their work and chose our men.

Given the urgency of needing new directors,

allowing one director to make one film wasn't efficient.

So, we thought if we had four directors work together,

we'd produce four at once.

In Hong Kong, at the time,

there was a lot of discussion regarding the "New Wave" filmmakers.

When I met them in Hong Kong,

I found their way of working very interesting.

They were a team, they worked together.

It was mainly Tsui Hark, Ann Hui and Allen Fong.

Hou Hsiao-hsien and Chen Kun-hou,

they had taken charge of production.

The directors were Hou, Tseng Chuang-hsiang and Wan Jen.

Each of them made an episode of The Sandwich Man.

Chen Kuo-fu Critic and Filmmaker

At that time,

you could feel a burning energy in these people.

It was comparable to that of the young revolutionaries,

who had, in the past, answered Sun Yat-sen,

and his call to a republican revolution,

which overthrew the Qing dynasty.

While we were not so young anymore,

in the cinema, we were novices,

without pasts or prejudices.

We shared that same momentum.

It was in 1983 that, with the help of the New Cinema guys on The Sandwich Man,

the potential of this movement became clear to me.

Through my experience on the film I began to understand

that it was possible to think and act through film.

Right after that anthology film, Hou shot The Boys from Fengkuei.

It took me by surprise,

as he had broken entirely with the style of his previous films,

to assert a totally confident and idiosyncratic approach.

In the cinema of Hou,

The Boys from Fengkuei represents a decisive step and turning point.

A leap from the ground level to the apex.

His 1985 film, A Time to Live, A Time to Die.

Which remains, in my eyes

the very best film in the whole of the Taiwanese cinema.

I would come here sometimes when I had free time,

to think, read and take notes.

Almost all my scripts, ever since A Time to Live, A Time to Die

have been completed here.

It's like an office that's totally mine.

I have my own habits here,

and the space clears my mind for the creativity needed.

I'll jot up notes, as in here,

on moods, plot lines and characters.

When all of this has been considered, I move on to the actual filmmaking,

imagining the tone of the opening scene,

after which each scene follows.

I write everything down, constantly revising the scenes,

as I repeat this process every day, over and over until I'm satisfied.

Afterwards, I'll discuss it all with her.

Basically, I listen to him,

and aim to give him feedback.

I may explore some adjacent notions,

and come back with ideas not present in the script,

or that have nothing to do with the film.

If he likes them, he'll integrates them.

Our sessions are quite different to those of other creative teams.

We talk about our lives. Everything, in full.

A personal detail of mine may cause a cascade of memories,

and from that new ideas flow.

I'm too lazy to write.

I get tired of it all the time,

and it used to be a one-man struggle.

They are brilliant writers,

so I write down my ideas,

basically some key words, which we then discuss.

Chu then takes them away and starts to write,

and I just relax and wait for her to finish.

This is my next film, Flowers of Shanghai.

Chu and I have already discussed the structure,

and she's completed the full outline.

However, I want a different approach this time.

This time I wanted to write the screenplay

and all of the dialogue myself.

I'm doing a first draft,

after which we'll discuss it, and perhaps have her then do a rewrite.

It's not finalised yet, this is just a first draft.

This is my notebook.

It was the basis for the script.

He asked me to bring it.

It's A City of Sadness.

After discussing the script that's pretty much it.

Changes are made if something isn't right, or the actors don't like something.

I want the actors to be able to get into the part.

I want them to understand the scenarios,

and also feel like they can improvise.

The script moves around a lot.

They sometimes think that all the writing was for nothing.

I don't write the script for Hou.

I do it for Nien-jen, as he needs it to write the dialogue.

I do it for the crew,

as they need to prepare sets,

and get the actors ready and everything else right.

So, I write it as a guide,

- And hope it doesn't restrain him. - She doesn't show it to me!

He doesn't want to read it, it's basically a blueprint for the crew.

Sometimes, if I can't figure a scene out,

if I'm having trouble getting a scene wrapped,

or if I think it is bad,

I'll shift to another scene.

One with similar atmosphere.

This preserves the mood for the actors,

because I almost never do rehearsals.

I explain the scene to them,

and when they've understood everything with an,

"Ah!",

then we're "shooting."

Often, right after he calls cut, you realise you never wrote this.

Fuck you!

You deserve to be dead by now!

Why aren't you?

You pulled one hell of a dirty trick on Wen-leung!

A City of Sadness 1989

You piece of shit!

Huh!?

- What do you want? - What do I want?

You know what you've done...

Don't say things that you'll regret!

You wouldn't dare!

Try me!

Couldn't I?

You've got guts!

All talk!

Bastard! I'll get you!

Boss!

Are you okay?

Call a doctor!

How bad is it?

Put the knife awayy.

Go and get the doctor quickly!

Wen-leung!

I came here a few times,

when we did A City of Sadness.

The gold mines had closed, the town was very rundown,

because there were no residents anymore.

You could feel the passage of time very palpably.

When the mines were booming, the bars flourished.

They were girl bars.

This place was perfectly suited for the movie,

it had the exact atmosphere I was looking for.

Especially in winter, because it rains constantly.

Let's sit in here and have some tea.

Do you charcoal-roast your oolong?

Of course.

Most stores don't make it this way anymore.

Yes, it has a different flavour, when the oolong is roasted.

We'll have that.

How are the watermelon seeds?

The best, of course.

You'll know when you eat them.

We'll take them!

Would you like some tea?

Yes.

A Time to Live, A Time to Die earned me violent attacks.

The clear message behind the film was,

that this notion that we could reclaim Mainland China was, ultimately,

a bunch of lies and an impossible dream.

I was aware of the political pressure.

It was harsh back then.

The slightest criticism meant big trouble,

and no film was made without the approval of the censor.

Ever since the nationalist government had taken power,

our history books had been China-oriented.

Our native history as Taiwanese people was obscured,

and deliberately shortened and oversimplified.

Before A City of Sadness,

I only knew Taiwan's story in fragments.

Through the film, I wanted to honour the dignity of the people,

especially those who had been subjected to especially harsh oppression.

I knew I was at risk addressing this issue.

However, I knew it would be fine,

there was no need to be afraid because I wasn't being critical.

I wasn't aiming to castigate, but to look at everything objectively.

The interesting thing about the film is its approach,

I wanted to explore the passage of major power transitions,

from the Japanese to Nationalist governments, to martial law,

through the misfortunes of one family,

and, within that story,

explore a political and economic turning point.

I was interested in this from a both familial and individual perspective.

This is a very sensitive point of history,

and we had our share of troubles back then.

Fortunately for me, at the time, martial law had lifted.

Furthermore, the...

the opposition had gained ground.

Basically, I knew it wasn't possible, given the situation,

for the KMT to bother with the hassle of coming after me.

It would be a headache to attack a director popular at both home and abroad.

Initially, the censors demanded two cuts,

but the press attacked them mercilessly,

so they backed off.

However, I learned that in the south of the country,

based on some agreement between the production company and the censors,

sensitive scenes had been cut from the film.

From doing my own research,

I could see that in families in Taiwan, no one spoke.

Adults said "keep silent".

Despite the policy changes and a more benign government,

after four decades, people still wouldn't speak out.

When the film was released, everyone began to speak.

There were a lot articles and reviews, all one after the other, like a fad.

It was as if a wave was breaking, and now everything was out in public.

People let out what was buried inside,

and felt truly liberated.

It used to be that all films were dubbed.

There were only a few dubbing artists,

so, in the end, everyone's voices sounded the same.

I prefered to have my actors voice themselves.

For A City of Sadness,

we decided to shoot with synced sound.

After discussion with Tu Du-che,

we rented a Nagra.

We shot with a Nagra and two microphones.

This meant there was, on A City of Sadness,

a radically different nature to the edit and assembly.

The sound became a key element.

Tu Du-che Sound engineer

Just like Director Hou said,

we did some tests with Lee Tien-lu's voice.

We had done some tests with sync sound on 16mm film.

Prior to A City of Sadness,

our experience was limited to synchronised recording.

We were not as familiar with sound editing.

The "New Cinema" era was a milestone,

as the young directors brought major changes,

and we technicians, also got in on the act,

taking advantage of it to push for what we needed.

It was Hou who enabled us to realise our dream,

of shooting a whole film in live sound.

On A City of Sadness,

we had very rudimentary equipment,

just a Nagra, a mono track and two microphones.

Hou later decided to back me up and buy me additional equipment.

When I gave Mr. Tu money,

I told him not to worry about paying me back.

So long as he was making a secure living,

the principle was that it buy equipment,

and fund the training of new people.

This equipment laid the foundation for Taiwanese cinema

to improve the quality of the sound recording.

As there was no financial burden on me,

as Hou had paid for it all,

the money I was saving personally meant I could buy things I needed.

This allowed me to help on low-budget films,

with operational finance coming from big-budget projects.

The box office was very good.

A City of Sadness was a huge success.

The biggest of 1989.

This made it easier to find investors.

I've always refused interference,

or the idea of relinquishing control to get funded.

That had made fundraising difficult in the past.

Prior to A City of Sadness,

some of my films had received awards at European festivals like,

Rotterdam, Nantes or Berlin.

None had won major awards.

The Taiwanese press ignored me.

Some dubbed me the winner at a provincial festival.

When A City of Sadness won the Golden Lion at Venice,

suddenly investors showed up everywhere.

Before, I'd had to mortgage my house,

borrow heavily,

just to co-produce my films.

I hadn't been able to pay any of this off.

A City of Sadness changed all of that.

Media attention and critical recognition internationally

attracted the attention of the government,

which, based on the success, started to promote the cinema culturally,

and to even set plans in motion to finance filmmakers.

In addition, every year,

festival managers from around the world

came to Taiwan to search for films.

As a result, art films became big business.

Lee Tien-lu Puppeteer and actor

After the funeral of my father-in-law,

we returned to Taipei.

I had only 50 cents in my pocket.

What could I do with 50 cents?

I rented a rickshaw

to take my wife, daughter,

and baby home.

My son, Hong, and me,

we walked back to Duanlungtong, taking 13 breaks along the way.

The Puppetmaster 1993

By a happy coincidence, I met a former disciple when I arrived.

Since the defeat of Japan, he played on Ping-chiang Street,

and he started a busy season there on July 7th.

He came to see me on July 13th,

knowing I would be home.

He came to see me, and he started by saying:

''Master, the whole company is waiting for you,

''come and play with us.''

I replied by saying that I still got malaria attacks.

What could I do?

He said not to worry about it.

A bed would be set up backstage,

and I could lie down if the malaria attacks ever started,

he would take over performing the show.

Dui, take my puppet.

He's shaking now.

Hurry, hurry.

He's shaking now.

Assayas: When was it possible for a Taiwanese film to shoot on location in China?

I went there in 1988.

It had become as martial law had been lifted in 1987.

In fact, it wasn't Beijing that had forbidden us,

but Taiwan that was reluctant to let us doing film and TV programs there.

China embraced us.

The film is set in old Taiwan,

but the Taiwan of old no longer exists.

So I went looking for it on the mainland.

Rice fields, landscapes, houses and period clothing.

Both places are similar in many ways.

Everything looks identical to old Taiwan.

In particular, country villages and rural landscapes.

We made this a police station.

Lee Tien-lu had worked closely with the police,

doing a lot of promotional work for them with his puppets.

Lee Tien-lu is like a walking encyclopedia of Taiwanese history.

He has spent all of his life in Taiwan,

ever since the initial Japanese occupation of Taiwan.

In my childhood, I watched a lot of puppet theatre.

Lee's style was very traditional.

The puppets are smaller, about the size of your palm,

It's very refined.

I find his performances to be very beautiful and fluid.

He also has in-depth knowledge of Peking opera.

He sings it very well.

This type of theatre is a local tradition,

but its repertoire is closely linked to

to the model of the Peking opera.

He is a very funny person,

as an artist, totally unselfconscious.

He does not think of himself as an artist.

He's bursting with life and energy.

Despite our age difference,

I feel very close to him, we are kindred spirits.

Like me, he was always fighting,

very temperamental,

and very strong-willed.

When I went to shoot in China,

I brought my whole team with me.

There was about 100 of us.

Twenty on the Mainland side, and eighty on ours,

and about a dozen trucks.

Lee brought along a puppet troupe,

because I wanted the real thing.

They were all older men,

50 or 60 years old.

If they made mistakes, he would glare at them.

They were terrified,

despite their age and experience.

I came here when I was an assistant director.

There are many tunnels in mountainous areas like this.

As a child, I would get carsick,

so I always took the train.

Lee really is an encyclopedia.

He knows all about our traditional customs and rites.

every detail about things we no longer understand.

Thanks to his vision of the past,

my creative work can access those dimensions,

and take on a wider view,

covering how we Taiwanese acted in the past,

and interacted with traditional Chinese values.

From mining my own experience,

I've tried to develop a form of creation

that allows me to reflect on myself.

Seeing my past and background more clearly,

thinking about how I have become who I am,

has allowed me to understand others better.

My earlier films tended to be more dramatic and romantic.

I often wanted to take a different direction.

However, modern life seemed hard to decipher,

and I had to take time and consider how to look at it.

I wanted to reflect on it with some distance.

It's just like when we reflect on your past.

I wanted to make a movie that does that with "now".

Man 1: Excuse me.

Man 2: Give us a hand, please.

Hou: Back up a little.

Hou: Bye.

Hou: It's Da Hua.

Assayas: How long until we arrive?

Hou: When will we arrive in Shih-fen?

How long will it take?

I shot two films here:

Dust in the Wind in 1986,

and Goodbye South, Goodbye in 1996.

I wanted to film in the present tense,

and no longer with a look to the past,

then see the difference.

It feels like that modern life moves fast,

and you can go anywhere because it's convenient.

Filming in the present, as a result, takes on another mood and form.

She is from Ping-hsi.

We became friends when I shot there.

Did you shoot in Che-tong?

A long time ago, but I rarely go there now.

I am very curious about the thoughts of people,

those in the past and of my contemporaries.

as well as the world itself today.

If I see a man, in a café,

who smokes constantly,

I want to know what he is thinking about.

I would like talk to him, get inside his head.

It's a new experiece.

Maybe sometimes on my way somewhere,

a group on motorbikes stop for the light.

Their thoughts on the world must be totally different to mine.

Their way of thinking about life,

their mindset and logic must be different to mine.

This sparks my curiousity.

Now I've changed in this direction.

The Puppetmaster was about Lee and his family.

Then there was Good Men, Good Women,

following Annie Yi and her life,

I still didn't feel it was enough.

After that I moved on to Goodbye South, Goodbye,

and trying to capture the savvy and ideas of real people today,

the authentic rhythms of their lives and behaviours.

How about pak choi?

Do you have salted cabbage?

What's that?

Fried cabbage.

Assayas: How long has it been like this in Taiwan?

Does he have any comment?

When the value of the Hong Kong dollar fell and ours rose,

Taiwanese producers invested heavily in films there,

so a lot of Hong Kong films were imported.

However, over the last three years,

audiences have started to shun them,

as the stories and casts are all the same.

As a result, distributors started to buy in Western films,

They snatched up anything from any studio, festival or filmmaker.

In the past, the import of Western films was limited,

in order to protect the local market from competition.

so the number of prints available was set at a maximum of eight.

That's finished, so now there are at least 50 prints around.

Western films monopolise the rooms.

It looks like a supermarket,

where the only product would be foreign cinema.

Have you considered ways in which you could distribute your own films,

perhaps by renting screening rooms or opening a cinema?

My dream is to build a theatre.

Distribution here has been monopolised by the major chains.

My films should be released in a few venues,

and stay there longer,

in what in Europe you call an arthouse run.

In the current chain system,

if a film is to be distributed,

it will be in 40 theatres at a time,

and require 40 prints of the film,

Imagine the cost for 40 prints of your film?

And then you factor in the costs of promotion.

If the film doesn't work,

it's a complete disaster.

Some films are ideal for an arthouse run,

an extended screening period on only one or two screens.

I've been mulling over if I could develop an arthouse cinema,

with only a screening room or two,

a small coffee shop,

where people can meet and talk all about movies,

and buy special publications and film merchandise.

They're abundant abroad.

It could be next to a university.

Students and cinephiles could find their way there.

It should be a nice place to socialise,

like the temple was for me and my friends back then.

Now, for young people today, it's McDonald's.

This is where they meet.

Interpreter: Does Hong Kong's return to China affect Taiwan?

Of course, Hong Kong acted as an intermediary between Taiwan and China.

Direct relations were prohibited.

Now that's all changed.

There's just the Mainland now.

We've lost this intermediary point.

How will the Taiwanese government respond to this?

Before it was Taiwan and Hong Kong investing in China,

now China is getting global attention.

Before, the relationship between Taiwan and the Mainland was –

they used to want us to come

Now we must push for it.

The relationship is not the same anymore.

Dealing with this issue requires wisdom,

but I sincerely doubt the capabilities of our decison-makers.

This is why there was the missle crisis between Taiwan and the Mainland in March.

It's a question of wisdom.

When a U.S. aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait,

China understood that it was really dealing with Washington.

So now China negotiates with the United States,

and entirely ignores Taiwan.

United States also wants to patch up relations with Communist China,

and ensure that relationship is strong,

because the market in Asia is booming.

For the best interests of its own economy,

Washington has to re-establish good relations with the CCP.

In my opinion, regarding the current situation,

Taiwan's future is likely to get more difficult,

unless our politicians can begin to act wisely.

In my filmmaking, the character is decisive,

and the character is based on real people I encounter.

Who Jack Kao will play,

or who Lee Tien-lu, Annie Yi, Wu Nien-jen will be,

It is only when they have been defined,

that a story is developed around them.

I begin with the people.

Lim Giong has a background as a musician.

He will struggle to make the transition to acting,

unless he can access the bigger picture in a way he understands.

However, with Jack Kao, I give him less,

otherwise his imagination runs wild with ideas.

I direct the actors in a simple way, with only a small amount of discussion.

They're free to move and develop their own rhythms.

They know what needs to be said in a scene.

I'm there to remind them to not focus to entirely on the words,

to draw their attention to others,

the space and how they could interact with it.

The script is there to give them a direction,

to let them know what is there to be said in a scene,

but they need to be free to think while they perform.

The dialogue must be the result of a reaction.

Speech is always spontaneous.

Sticking to script can, sometimes will,

make a performance unnatural.

It's much more powerful and moving, I believe,

if the reactions are spontaneous.

Generally, my rule is not to have a rehearsal,

as I think rehearsal makes the scenes too familiar.

It restricts the actors if they know the material too well.

In general, I find one or two takes are enough.

If it's taking too long, I'll stop,

and attempt the scene the next day.

If the scene still isn't working, I'll cut it,

and figure out an alternative.

If I have to design another scene,

I make sure it's new for them,

to ensure that it's novel and unfamiliar.

A film is a world that you create,

and a place to put all that you feel.

You can't do this in real life.

If you expressed all of your feelings in daily life,

for some it would be unbearable,

some people find it very hard to handle.

I think this what I am like,

and I always will be.

It's only by making films,

that I can understand myself better.

As in Goodbye South, Goodbye,

I find myself drawn to these characters.

I especially like their energy,

their passion, their vitality.

I can't be critical of my characters.

I present them as they are.

If you love what you see,

you need to present it.

Then I observe them objectively.

About them I feel... not tragedy,

but a kind of inescapable isolation.

They seem trapped by history and their own experience,

as if it were destiny or fate.

Many filmmakers in their fifties get preachy,

their work is brimming with their philosophy of life.

They get every idea in there.

As a result, the films are bad.

Whereas before, with these directors,

their first films were strong, precise and affecting.

People were genuinely touched by them.

So I think we should all try and return to that,

the approach seen in these early films that was...

powerful and direct.

Just like when we first got out of school,

and learnt that we had to begin to face the world.

That is the way we should be.

Goodbye South, Goodbye 1996

Its exhaust system looks fucked up.

Is your bike going to explode?

"Ha! Go! You're nothing special"

"Everything's about you, while I depress myself"

"Although I love you, you can't be so childish"

"Not even a lonely duck would want you"

"Ha! Go! You're nothing special"

"Everything's about you, while I depress myself"

"Although I love you, you can't be so childish"

"Not even a lonely duck would want you"

When I met Jack Kao, I felt this he was very capable.

He brings a real presence with him, when he is on screen,

especially with his eyes and face.

How long have I known Hou?

Almost 10 years.

Jack Kao Actor

The first time I met him,

he didn't give me anything to do.

He made me wait for two days.

My work began on the third day of the shoot.

Lim Giong Musician and actor

For me it began with The Puppetmaster.

Yeah, The Puppetmaster.

I was just starting out in film,

I knew nothing about it.

I was looking at how they worked.

I didn't know how to talk to the crew,

the cinematographer and lighting technicians.

Hou: You were meant to be busy creating.

With experience, you learn to manage quite well,

creating the details of your role is quite fulfilling.

If you mention it to Hou later,

he will say: "Oh, you were creating for yourself.''

I wasn't really doing anything!

I wasn't very confident with my acting.

He is a musician.

Perhaps he wanted my help at the box office, since I was doing well?

I saw you in concert,

I noticed the energy you were giving off.

I hoped to get this energy into the movie,

but first he had to make the adjustment.

The two are quite different, you need to adjust.

Then you could be more controlled.

It was when doing Goodbye South, Goodbye,

that you finally made the transition.

I was very conscious of the camera.

Hou: He's very self-conscious. Lim: I'm always aware of it!

I find that, here in Taiwan,

the society is still imbued with something primitive.

Suffused with a fierce machismo.

At every turn, you have to prove you are a man.

Like a wild animal.

I find it quite fascinating,

the symbols of strength in this male world.

Politics is a similar world, as it's all about countering an other's power.

But, honestly, I'm less interested in it.

Why? It's too calculating, too base.

The gangster scene, though,

it's a world founded on machismo,

which is more romantic,

more forceful.

In Taiwan, this primitive side still exists.

I have experienced this male world myself,

and I've always been around men,

it takes me back to the past, to where I grew up.

There, it was always necessary to be the best,

to strive after becoming the big man,

or the leader of the thugs,

otherwise you were nothing.

As a man, I feel that a man has to do what a man has to do.

Today, men are less assertive, more neutral.

Women will eventually surpass men.

I am certain the world will change completely.

I'm nostalgic for the macho world,

its rivalries,

competing like a pack of dogs,

fighting to be in charge.

"Although you and I meet in the air every day"

"Because your soft and sweet voice is cute"

"I can't help it"

"I'm lost for you"

I've always loved the early pop songs of Taiwan.

They probably remind me of childhood memories,

what I felt towards my family.

They are mostly sad songs, correlating to my past feelings.

I picked up a lot of them then.

"Although you and I meet in the air every day"

My bearing is quite different when I sing,

and my friends all notice I'm very serious about it.

I enter a song completely when I sing.

I inhabit the mood of the song,

its atmosphere and tone.

It cleanses your soul and allows you to express your happiness.

When I'm writing a script,

or even thinking about one,

maybe thinking of a time I was happy too,

I will start to sing,

or start to a hum any tune that comes into my head.

"I only miss you."

For me, singing is an excellent way to, you know,

let out pent up emotions and express my feelings.

I find it exhilirating.

And you sing that much better when you are in love.

"After many struggles, do you ever feel tired?"

"I've felt that way before, many times"

"When someone broke my heart"

"And no one understands"

"I think we both feel truly exhausted"

"Cheers friends, let it all out"

"And think of the past as a hangover"

"Tomorrow's wine glass is free of yesterday's sadness"

"Raise your glass with me and celebrate the past"

[Singing in Japanese:]

"After many struggles, do you ever feel tired?"

"I've felt that way before, many times"

"When someone broke my heart"

"And no one understands"

"I think we both feel truly exhausted"

"Cheers friends, let it all out"

"And think of the past as a hangover"

"Tomorrow's wine glass is free of yesterday's sadness"

"Raise your glass with me and celebrate the past"

"Cheers friends, let it all out"

[Singing returns to Mandarin:]

"And think of the past as a hangover"

"Tomorrow's wine glass is free of yesterday's sadness"

"Raise your glass with me and celebrate the past"

"Cheers friends, let it all out"

"And think of the past as a hangover"

"Tomorrow's wine glass is free of yesterday's sadness"

"Raise your glass with me and celebrate the past"

"Cheers friends, let it all out"

"And think of the past as a hangover"

That's a wrap!