Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotesOverview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditsAwards & Reviews
user reviewsexternal reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guidemessage boardPlot & Quotes
plot summarysynopsisplot keywordsmemorable quotesDid You Know?
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQOther Info
box office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specsliterature listingsNewsDeskPromotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo galleryExternal Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clipsReviews & Ratings for
Good Men, Good Women More at IMDbPro »Hao nan hao nu (original title)
| Index | 10 reviews in total |
18 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
One of Hou's greatest achievements, 28 June 2004
Author:
Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.
Encouraged by American foreign policy, the Kuomintang government in Taiwan
in the 1950s began a policy of repression of real or suspected communists
who were rounded up by the military police, detained, and often shot. This
event, known as the White Terror, was suppressed in Taiwan, along with the
2-28-47 massacres, without any public discussion for forty years. Only the
trees were witnesses and the story could not be told until martial law was
lifted in 1987, yet even now remains clouded with hints of undisclosed
crimes. Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1995 film Good Men, Good Women dramatizes the
Taiwanese people's fear and reluctance to deal with their past, showing the
effects of Taiwan's forgotten history on the destiny of an actress in
present-day Taiwan. Dedicated to all the political victims of the 1950s, the
film uses the device of a "film within a film" to tell the story of
real-life activists Chiang Bi-Yu (also played by Inoh) and her husband
Hao-Tung (Giong Lim) who fought in China against the Japanese during World
War II but were arrested as Communists when they came home.
Good Men, Good Women takes place in three different time sequences: the
contemporary world of actress Liang Ching (Annie Shizuka Inoh), her
recollection of her recent past as a drug-addicted barmaid, and the world of
a yet to be made film about resistance fighters in the 1940s. Hou suggests a
contrast between the sterile, corrupt lives of the present generation and
the young people of the past who acted with a social conscience. While it is
a complex and elliptical film, it is one of Hou's greatest, filled with
tenderness and sensuality and an aching melancholy for a world whose promise
has remained unfulfilled.
The film opens with a parade of young people dressed as peasants who march
toward the camera singing a joyous song: "When yesterday's sadness is about
to die. When tomorrow's good cheer is marching towards us. Then people say,
don't cry. So why don't we sing." The camera then cuts to present day Taipei
where an unidentified caller telephones Liang Chang but refuses to speak.
The caller has stolen her diaries, and faxes her the pages daily prompting
her to recall her tragic relationship with Ah Wei (Jack Kao), a gangster who
died in a shootout. The film intersperses scenes of intimacy between the two
lovers with the world of the 1940s where Chiang Bi-Yu and Hao-Tung, have
left Taiwan for the Chinese mainland to support the anti-Japanese
resistance. The "film within a film" shows how Chiang and Hao are forced to
put their children in foster care and Liang identifies with Chiang, drawing
parallels from her own experience of having to give up the things she loved
the most.
Hou shows that events buried in a nation's past can have far reaching
consequences and that history may be indistinguishable from personal memory.
Yet the film is not one of ideas but of images and Hou has provided some
memorable ones; for example, when Liang sits before a mirror putting on her
makeup as Ah Wei sits closely beside her talking about the possibility of
her being pregnant. It is a mundane event, yet Hou imparts it with a
mysterious and timeless quality. In many ways, Good Men, Good Women is
typical of Hou's films with its static camera, long takes, and rhythms of
everyday life, yet it is also his most political, a searing indictment of
the squandering of a nation's heritage, allowing us to see that a country,
like its people, cannot redeem its future until it tells the truth about its
past.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Puzzling multi-layered picture of Taiwan's past and present, 26 February 2006
Author:
Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California
Hou's concept is an interesting one: instead of a straight linear
narrative either about the White Terror period in Taiwanese history or
about an actor with a dead gangster boyfriend, he overlaps the two, and
adds a further layer by putting the gangster a couple of years ago, and
the actress now getting ready to act in a historical film about the
White Terror, while being bugged in the present by somebody who sends
her faxes of a stolen diary about the gangster, and calls and breathes
into the phone. Hou isn't trying to spoon-feed us, and that's
admirable. He is also allowing us to ponder complex inter-historical
relationships. But the effect of the spliced layers is jarring and
doesn't always work. Another DVD reviewer (like me), John Wallis, of
DVD Talk, has already commented that he "could not see how the film
about the White Terror atrocities affected the actress in any way --
other than it made her lamenting over her lost boyfriend and soiled
past seem pretty trivial." Is it that bad? Nick Schrager and Aquerello
have offered the interpretation that after the gangster boyfriend's
death, Liang Ching, the actress, is guilty of a " betrayal of his
memory during her subsequent years as a drug-addled bar hostess."
Schrager concludes that "The implication, as subtle as it is powerful,
is that Liang's struggle to come to grips with her own disloyalty
reflects modern-day Taiwan's attempts to confront (and accept) its own
shameful past persecuting communists." Aquerello puts it that "Liang's
betrayal of Ah Wei's memory is a modern day, personal manifestation of
a national, historical event: the seemingly random persecution of
Taiwanese people by their own government during the White Terror."
That's a nice idea, but in fact Liang was a drug-addled bar hostess
while involved with Ah Wei (Jack Kao), the gangster; when they have a
discussion of her pregnancy while caressing in front of a mirror -- a
stagy but compelling scene many writers have commented favorably on --
she points out that being a bar hostess, she has slept with many men,
and she doesn't know for sure who the father is. ("Still, I'd like to
see a little Ah Wei," says Ah Wei, rather lamely.) The guilt is not so
clear. What is clear is that Liang Ching has had an unsavory past, and
that her dissolute life has been a far cry from the dedication of the
brave revolutionary she is going to portray on screen.
What is also clear (though the Fox Lorber DVD tonal quality is
mediocre, particularly in the black and while segments) is the idealism
of the Taiwanese nationalist fighters, who go to China to fight the
Japanese who have been oppressing them but then after the war is over,
are systematically exterminated (in a policy designed to please
America, by the way). Some of these scenes, such as one where one
person after another is briefly interrogated, have an arresting and
somehow heartrendingly tender vérité quality, as does the scene where
female fighters are taken from a prison room to be executed. There is a
wealth of beauty in the film, even when the present-day sequences seem
most contrived and boring, like a gangster dinner with city contractors
just before Ah Wei's shot.
It is also true as Acquerello says that, "As Liang becomes the
entrusted emissary for the story of Chiang Bi-Yu's struggle, she
gradually becomes the generational conduit between Taiwan's turbulent
past, and the decadent, uncertain future." That's about all we can say;
what Hou means by this linkage is hard to guess, and perhaps only meant
to be pondered, without any conclusions being drawn.
Howard Shumann has written a typically clear and informative review of
"Good Men, Good Women" for Cinescene that clarifies the general
structure and historical references of the film. My own reactions are
quite different, however. I wouldn't be as extreme as the IMDb
commenter who has called Hou's film-making "cinematic masturbation," or
use the language of Sam Adams of the Philadelphia City Paper (2002) who
calls "Good Men, Good Women" "a confused exercise" and suggests it's
self-indulgent. But I have to agree with Adams that, "Good Men feels so
arbitrary that its closing-title dedication — to the victims of the
anti-Communist purges of the 1950s — is almost shocking; it's hard to
believe the director could take a subject that seriously and make a
film this self-indulgent." The shifts from the present-day actress's
discomfort and her flashbacks to life with Ah Wei to the historical
film-making never seem predictable. Some might find that intriguing; to
me is merely seems arbitrary and random.
"Good Men, Good Women" is far more multi-layered and ambitious than a
purely present-day musing like "Millennium Mambo" (despite the latter's
tacked-on comment that the voice-over occurs ten years later). But the
randomness of the splicings makes the implied relationship
questionable, even frivolous. Hou may be better off separating his
historical treatments from his modern ones, as he does quite simply
with three segments in his recent "Three Times."
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Hou Hitting his stride, 28 November 2004
Author:
nycsean from New York City!
I was introduced to Hou Hsiao-Hsien by Flowers of Shanghai, an
exquisite piece of work that spoke of a mature film maker, who had
mastered his visual language. I imagine that it would be a similar
experience to an introduction to Wong kar Wai or Almovodar with In the
Mood for Love or All About My Mother, respectively being pieces where
an good director became a great. You finish these types of films
wondering where did he (the director) come from intellectually, and
where is he going.
Hou's style is subtle, an excellent cinematographer and picture taker,
like many of the Asian films (whether this is from a common thread or
by accident I don't know). He is not as overtly stylish as Wong
Kar-Wai, but the shots he takes and chooses (perhaps the better
adjective) are beautiful.
A previous commentator called this style "cinematic masturbation",
which I think is an adolescent argument. Just because the points don't
hit you over the head doesn't mean they are not being made. This is a
political film, dealing with a still sensitive topic. The director
definitely cares about the audience. Like anything else, it's the
little details that count.
One of those little details is an Ozu film being played on TV in one
background shot. Hou has consciously acknowledged Ozu as an influence
and his style shows it. The action, so to speak, takes place within the
context of the everyday events. The points being made are observed by
the routine actions, and unique touches within them.
The most solid point being the commonality of loss, and tragedy between
two Taiwanese actresses of different generations. Both lose lovers, and
sacrifice children to the events around them.
The other point is the simultaneous affluence and emptiness is modern
day life. The actress in the older story is based on a real person, who
joined the anti-Japanese resistance in China during WWII. After this,
her husband is executed in an anti-communist crackdown in Taiwan. She
is both pushed along by events, but shows a determination to live her
life and make decisions, This is in contrast to the other story, that
of the actress playing (there is a movie within a movie), who is
looking back on a life with petty gangsters, drinking and drugs. In
material goods she is richer than the older actress ever was, with her
upper middle class life, yet poorer in far more many ways. Both are
played by the same actress, who handles the two stories well.
In the Hou portfolio, I prefer this to Goodbye South Goodbye, which I
felt got a little lost in fancy camera work, but I feel that this is
close to Flowers of Shanghai.
7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Deliberate minimalism from an uncompromising master, 30 November 2005
Author:
PiranianRose from USA
This movie achieved substantial impact on me, in a good way. Firstly,
it's the first Hou Hsiou Hsien film that I have been able to sit
through in its entirety. As much as I claim to admire film as art, I
will not ever consider giving FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI another attempt.
Secondly, I now see Hou Hsiou Hsien as one of the most respectable
craftsman in cinema, even more admirable than Zhang Yimou from China or
my personal favorite, Wong Kar Wai from HK, and I'll give my reasons.
Zhang and Wong take risks with their creations, but they are relatively
easy to grasp, and even have some entertainment values. For example,
Zhang's TO LIVE is an emotionally heavy drama that spans several
generations before, during, and after Cultural Revolution. Even if one
doesn't have taste for art films, one could enjoy its sheer melodrama.
In the case of Wong, his Chungking Express has a huge cult following.
It has a sweet touch of spontaneity that makes it watchable to anyone,
although the disconnected storytelling could throw some people off.
So Zhang can do intense drama, and Wong can direct spontaneous acting.
Hou Hsiou Hsien (or his colleagues Tsai Ming Liang and Edward Yang),
however, is of a different breed. His films (that I've seen anyway) are
casual but deliberately never ever strive to be interesting. For
example, there's no moody music, showy cinematography, or
thought-provoking dialogue to spice things up while you watch a
2-minute long take of people walking. Everything is just as indifferent
as it is and nothing more; then it's up to us to give it a meaning --
that is the essence of MINIMALISM which define Hou's body of work.
Minimalist cinema is by far the most difficult to grasp and sit through
(since "nothing happens," some will understandably accuse), and many
viewers detest it with a passion. Whether this style is actually
effective I do not know, "all I know is this: once I was blind and now
I can see." Good Men Good Women is an eye opener for me.
In recent years, several well-noted Chinese art house filmmakers have
upgraded to generously budgeted blockbusters: Ang Lee with Crouching
Tiger, Zhang Yimou with Hero and Flying Dagger, He Ping with Warriors
of Heaven & Earth, Fruit Chan with Three Extremes: Dumpling, not to
forget Cheng Kaige's special effects fantasy extravaganza The Promise
on the way, followed by Wong Kar Wai reportedly to film an American
feature The Lady from Shanghai with Nicole Kidman, and words of Hou's
Taiwanese colleague Edward Yang to direct an animation produced by
Jackie Chan. In such a relaxing trend, will Hou Hsiou Hsien have any
surprises for us, or will he continue to explore Taiwan in minimalist
glory?
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Good People, 27 October 2007
Author:
kafkaesque-panda from Canada
The conclusion of Hou's Taiwanese history trilogy, 'Good Men, Good
Women' is not purely a continuation of the previous films' themes. It
is an amalgamation of the past, present, and the connections between
both. The two time periods in this film (or is it three?) are gradually
intertwined to tell one cohesive story.
In modern day Taipei, an actress Liang Ching (Annie Shizuka Inoh) is
rehearsing for the role of Chiang Bi-Yu, a woman who traveled to China
to find the Japanese in the 1940's. Liang is struggling and distraught
because of the death of her gangster boyfriend Ah Wei (Jack Kao) a few
years prior and because an anonymous man is faxing her pages of her
stolen diary which restitute her previous memories of her time with Ah,
and after his death. Liang's imaginary episodes of what the film will
be like, which are for the most part shot in black and white, her
immediate present, and her immediate past are all mixed together with
the deftest emotional accuracy.
The shots are so artistically accomplished that they are able to
properly the connection of all history and past, with current personal
events, and the eternal, constant binds of time. Liang's story nearly
directly mirrors Chiang Bi Yu's. Both contemplate in alienation; when
Chiang and her compatriots whom she enters China do not speak the
language of those who they are trying to help because of the Japanese
occupation of Taiwan which, for them, just recently ended. They are
labeled as Japanese spies, and nearly killed, and upon the return to
Taiwan they are labeled as communists. Because of the oppressive
government and recent horrific acts committed by it they want to make a
change to make life better. No matter how questionable and near-sighted
their political views, they wanted to make some sort of change. Liang
and her 'compatriots' are drowning in shallowness. Hou praises the
courage of that older generation, but none of that is found in Liang's
age. Yet, he appears to say, that these are the same people who go
through similar experiences, and are only molded by the world around
them, and therefore by history. Over time, the dream for a better
future gives way to the dream for more profit because of the
implications of history and the political.
In the previous films of the 'trilogy', Hou searched for the
relationship between life and a certain form of art. Here, it is of
cinema, and therefore Hou questions his own role. Ozu's 'Late Spring'
plays on a television near the beginning, and in a self-referential
manner, helps represents how cinema is able to understand a people, and
their conflicts whether interior or exterior. In the previous films of
the 'trilogy', Hou searched for the relationship between life and a
certain form of art. Here, it is of cinema, and therefore Hou questions
his own role. Ozu's 'Late Spring' plays on a television near the
beginning, and in a self-referential manner, helps represents how
cinema is able to understand a people, and their conflicts whether
interior or exterior.
The regrets of the nation and the regrets of the person are all subtly
laid out to dry. In order to move forward into a non-unsure and
non-insecure future the regrets must be confronted. It's an eventual
and long, process but one that must be done. The political invades the
personal, and history's consequences affect the psychological. The
implications are devastating - the present condition or 'shallowness'
seemed to have been allowed to occur by the acts of the past. This is
not a film that is only understandable by Taiwanese standards. It is a
universal portrait of the history inherit in the present.
The haunting power of the film is completely understated and will
surely always linger on in the viewer's mind. It may not have the
rhapsodic epic profoundness of some of Hou's other films, but it
contains the grand humanism that they also have. The film is ultimately
extremely encapsulating, and with Hou's formal rigour, style, and
rhythm, and the expertly grounded performances it is utterly
captivating, and exquisite viewing.
2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Hou's critique of old and new Taiwan., 2 August 2002
Author:
lingmeister from New York City
Director Hsiao-hsien Hou seem to be fascinated with the disconnected newer
generations in contemporary Taiwan, including it in other films like
"Goodbye South, Goodbye". In this film, he takes on the period after the
Nationalist retrieved to Taiwan and parallels it with the modern day,
putting one story in another as a story which the film is to be based on
within a film. In both stories, it is about the turbulent times in which
the people as a whole act self destructively, either doing what they think
is right as in the Nationalist government or due to their disassociation
with the rest of society. The anonymous faxes in the modern period seem to
be an indication that incidences either swept behind or intentionally
forgotten will come back to haunt you until the issue is confronted. A
message that the brutality that happened after the Nationalist's arrival in
Taiwan should not be forgotten or ignored, but should eventually be dealt
with.
This is a movie that bravely confronts issues in a country that is too
preoccupied with trying to juggle for positions in the global market. A
reminder to everyone that a country's history does not consist of only the
valiant highlights, but also of shameful past that should not be
discarded.
2 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A masterpiece of personal and social tragedy, 21 October 2000
Author:
mlstein from Rochester, New York
A film about time and isolation and loss on a personal level, and on a national level, too; the Taiwanese patriots in the film-within-a-film cannot even speak Chinese--Taiwan having been a Japanese colony since 1895--so they are strangers to the motherland and strangers when they return home. The personal story glides seamlessly into the political. Endlessly moving, and only slow if you cannot feel Hou's deep compassion and depth of understanding. Why is this film maker not celebrated everywhere?
0 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Brave movie, 11 March 1999
Author:
Byung-Chul Kwon (kwon0910@yahoo.com) from Valencia California
If you believe in love no matter what their jobs are, watch this movie. If you believe in the power of a film, watch this one. It is a sad love story of a bar hostess but she shares the same love of a social fighter's.
8 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
I think I've come up with a useful description of Hou's style, 28 October 2001
Author:
zetes from Saint Paul, MN
It's cinematic masturbation (my term). That's not the same as intellectual
masturbation, mind you. It's not that his films are pretentious, per se.
Cinematic masturbation is when the filmmakers have no real desire to share
their ideas, thoughts, and motives with the audience. It's all done for
their own satisfaction. This is opposed to most other filmmakers, who
practise cinematic intercourse, by which they call for the audience to
participate in their films emotionally and/or intellectually. Hou's not the
only cinematic masturbator. Jean-Luc Godard is another one, though nowhere
near the level of Hou. I love Godard, but he has a tendency not to let his
audience in on what his motive is (and, yes, artists, filmmakers most of
all, should have a motive), especially in certain periods of his career.
Tarkovsky's Mirror is another maturbatory film - it's far too
incomprehensible to anyone who's not Tarkovsky. This is definitely a value
judgement. Masturbation, especially on film, is extremely narcissistic.
Frankly, it's unfair. Art is primarily for the audience, not the author.
Otherwise, there is no point in it.
Take Good Men, Good Women. It's not a bad movie, really. Certainly not Hou's
worst. Its main claim to greatness is its excellent cinematography, with
some sections in a high-contrast black and white and others in brilliant
color. Hou also decides to move his camera a bit and film from different
angles. He's finally caught up with D.W. Griffith, although he still falls
back on his favorite compositions again and again. The narrative is often
great - there are several great individual scenes - but it's ultimately too
difficult to follow, which is the exact same complaint I had of my
(currently) favorite Hou film, City of Sadness. The plot of Good Men, Good
Women revolves around the life of a famous Taiwanese actress (a real person;
the film is dedicated to her) and, in the more modern section of the film,
an actress who is apparently going to play this former actress in a film
about her life (her story is broken into two different time periods). This
made sense after I read up on it, but it was really confusing when I was
watching it. I assume the same actress played both parts. It's confusing
because Hou doesn't want to stress anything: characters are introduced with
their backs to us or when they're in shadows. How does he really expect us
to recognize and latch onto his characters? He just doesn't care. No, that's
not it. It's that he doesn't want us to do so: some pretentious notion that
a confusing movie is an artistic one.
If I were to see this film again, I might find it better. It's still
cinematic masturbation. If the audience, after reading up on it or seeing it
several times, then understands it, well, it only becomes mutual
masturbation. Satisfying, but wouldn't you much rather be
f*cking?
3 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
This is a sleepy movie., 16 November 1998
Author:
anonymous from paris
It seems that director Hou has failed dealing with big
ideas.
This movie is too quiet and too emotionless.
His early movies are much better with small everyday facts.
Related Links
| Plot summary | Ratings | Awards |
| Newsgroup reviews | External reviews | Plot keywords |
| Main details | Your user reviews | Your vote history |
Copyright © 1990-2012
IMDb.com, Inc.
Terms and Privacy Policy under which this service is provided to you.
An 
company.