Bei qing cheng shi (1989)

Director:

Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writers:

T'ien-wen Chu (writer)
Nien-Jen Wu (writer)

Release Date:

2 February 1990 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Family Relationships | Marriage | Knife Fight | Japanese Occupation | Political Uprising

Awards:

7 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Sung Young Chen
Wou Yi Fang	...	Hinoiei
Nakamura Ikuyo	...	Shizuko
Jack Kao	...	Wen Leung
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Tianlu Li
Ikuyo Nakamura	...	Shisuqo
Chen-Nan Tsai
Shufen Xin

Also Known As:

A City of Sadness (International: English title)
Bei cing cheng shih (Taiwan)

Runtime:

157 min

Country:

Hong Kong | Taiwan

Language:

Taiwanese | Mandarin | Japanese | Cantonese | Shanghainese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | UK:15 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Hokkien, China

Company:

3-H Films

Trivia:

Average shot length (ASL): 158 minutes / 222 shots = 43 seconds (some takes last over 3 minutes).

Quiet transcendence

A previous poster described this film as a Taiwanese Godfather, but better. Indeed, this film has a lot similarities to godfather, in which the most notable is the condensation of an entire nation into the life of one single family. Even though I never really come to love other Hou's films, City of Sadness is a flawless epic that truthfully depict an era that is forgotten by most of my generation. I have heard those stories from my paternal grandparents, who are like people portrait in the film, grass root Taiwanese. I have also heard stories from my maternal grandparents, who are the late comers from mainland China. The entire different perspectives surprised me that in such a small nation, mistrust is still profoundly rooted and transmitted via generations. City of Sadness portraits this image so hauntingly and yet with beautiful and quiet transcendence seeing the turmoil through the eyes of the deaf and mute son of the Lin family. Taiwan, the city of sadness, is eternally sorrowful because of its rootlessness, which until today, still runs in my blood.