#879: YANG, Edward: Taipei Story (1985)

YANG, Edward (Taiwan)
Taipei Story (1985)
Spine #879
Blu-ray


Edward Yang's second feature is a mournful anatomy of a city caught between the past and the present. Made in collaboration with Yang's fellow New Taiwan Cinema master Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taipei Story chronicles the growing estrangement between a washed-up baseball player (Hou, in a rare on-screen performance) working in his family's textile business and his girlfriend (Tsai Chin), who clings to the upward mobility of her career in property development. As the couple's dreams of marriage and emigration begin to unravel, Yang's gaze illuminates the precariousness of domestic life and the desperation of Taiwan's globalized modernity.

119 minutes
Color
Monaural
In Mandarin and Hokkien
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2017
Director/Writers


Yang was 38 when he directed Taipei Story.

Other Yang films in the Collection:

#804: A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
#339: Yi Yi (2000)

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixty-four page booklet featuring A Shared Mission, a foreward by Abbey Lustgarten, and Modern Planning, an essay by Andrew Chan on Taipei Story.

Commentary

None.

Introduction

By World Cinema Project founder Martin Scorsese.

Conversation

Between filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Wong on Taipei Story, which Hou cowrote and acted in.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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