Tong nien wang shi (1985)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writers:

T'ien-wen Chu (writer)
Hsiao-hsien Hou (writer)

Release Date:

1988 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Plot:

This depiction of childhood and adolescence draws heavily from the filmmaker's own boyhood. Like many of their compatriots...

Plot Keywords:

Coming Of Age | Historical | Teen

Awards:

5 wins

Cast

Mei-Feng
Yu-Yuen Tang	...	Grandmother
Feng Tien
Shufen Xin
Ann-Shuin Yiu

Also Known As:

A Time to Live and a Time to Die (USA) (festival title)
A Time to Live, a Time to Die (International: English title) (DVD title)
The Time to Live and the Time to Die
Tong nian wang shih (Taiwan)

Runtime:

Argentina:138 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente) | France:137 min | USA:138 min

Country:

Taiwan

Language:

Mandarin | Taiwanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:M | France:U | Singapore:NC-16 | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Taiwan

Company:

Central Motion Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

This film is inspired by screenwriter-turned-director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's coming-of-age story. It is the second installment of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Coming-of-Age Trilogy" that features three prominent Taiwanese screenwriters' coming-of-age stories - the other two are _My Summer at Grandpa's (1984)_ (inspired by the childhood memories of Chu Tien-Wen) and _Dust in the Wind (1986)_ (inspired by the coming-of-age story of Wu Nien-Jen).

The most personal work by one of the greatest living directors

This film, which first brought Hou and the Taiwanese New Wave to international attention, seems deceptively simple, like your run-of-the mill growing-up-humbly-in-a-third-world-country narrative: a young boy, whose family has been transplanted from China to Taiwan, faces a hard path to adulthood complete with neighborhood tussles and family deaths. But gradually its manner of telling draws you in: at first, events seem like fragmented vignettes, but are actually blended in a succession that has been described as `like watching clouds floating by.' His propensity towards graphically composed, image-driven storytelling recalls the styles of Ozu, Satyajit Ray and even Tarkovsky, but where Hou excels is in applying his style towards an examination on the nature of history. For my money, there has never been a filmmaker as consumed by the idea of history than Hou, and this deeply autobiographical film may shed light on his motivations. By the time we reach the devastating ending, there's an overwhelming feeling of a time and place, an entire way of life, that has slowly disappeared before our eyes, but even more heartbreaking is the profound sense of guilt, of youthful opportunity squandered in hoodlum-like loitering, of parents whose presence was taken for granted until the sudden arrival of their ineffable absence. Watch this film to see how movies are humankind's noble, anxious attempt to retrieve lost time, and how the retrieval only reflects back on the mournful permanence of that loss.