With New Year's Day coming up,I decided that in the last few remaining hours, I would finish viewing the early films of Hou.
View on the film:
Wrapping up the box set, Masters of Cinema present a refine transfer, with the picture quality of the print being clean, matched by the soundtrack being smooth.
Later calling this his "real" debut, directing auteur Hsiao-Hsien Hou reunites with his regular cinematographer of the era Kun-Hou Chen,and rids himself of the broad "Comedy" element which had never sat at ease in his earlier works.
Following the lads into the city, Hou stands back and breaths in the atmosphere with long Taiwan New Wave (TNW) lingering wide-shots backed by naturalistic background sounds over the dialogue, which are broken by swift panning shots over the lads stumbling towards adulthood, (such as getting conned for a "cinema screening" and attempts to kill a chicken slipping out of their hands.)
Penning the first of his team-ups with Hou that would continue across all of his other credits, the screenplay by T'ien-wen Chu stays perfectly in step with Hou's graceful mood, giving the dialogue a on the street TNW realism in the brisk exchanges between the boys from Fengkuei.
View on the film:
Wrapping up the box set, Masters of Cinema present a refine transfer, with the picture quality of the print being clean, matched by the soundtrack being smooth.
Later calling this his "real" debut, directing auteur Hsiao-Hsien Hou reunites with his regular cinematographer of the era Kun-Hou Chen,and rids himself of the broad "Comedy" element which had never sat at ease in his earlier works.
Following the lads into the city, Hou stands back and breaths in the atmosphere with long Taiwan New Wave (TNW) lingering wide-shots backed by naturalistic background sounds over the dialogue, which are broken by swift panning shots over the lads stumbling towards adulthood, (such as getting conned for a "cinema screening" and attempts to kill a chicken slipping out of their hands.)
Penning the first of his team-ups with Hou that would continue across all of his other credits, the screenplay by T'ien-wen Chu stays perfectly in step with Hou's graceful mood, giving the dialogue a on the street TNW realism in the brisk exchanges between the boys from Fengkuei.