A few issues back, Film Comment had a feature on the best single volume books on film and one of them was the BFI A City of Sadness volume. So since I was already a fan of Hou Hsiao-hsien I decided to search out the film A City of Sadness (1989) and read the book. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tony Leung starred in the film, this is always a good indicator that it would be a quality film--he seems to be involved with several directors that I appreciate: Hou, Wong Kar-wai, Tran Ahn Hung, and John Woo among others. It is an epic historical film about the tumultuous time between gaining independence from Japan and the post war troubles that China faced in the years 1948-1949 that would disrupt Taiwan. It focuses on a single family of four brothers who would not survive the ordeal. There are some great performances and impressive cinematography of the beauty of the Taiwanese coast and mountains from Huai-en Chan.
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