A Taiwanese package showed up today containing sets featuring films by Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming-Liang, two of the so-called Taiwan New Cinema’s greatest figures. Both sets are by Taiwan’s Central Pictures, with the former containing “A Time to Live, a Time to Die” and “Dust in the Wind” while the latter includes “Rebels of the Neon God,” “Vive L’Amour,” and “The River.”
Taiwanese cinema was in a pretty sorry state by the late 70s and early 80s, as audiences had tired of the domestic features their local theaters offered. In an attempt to shake things up, the Central Motion Pictures Corporation (CMPC) initiated a “newcomer policy” that gave a young crop of filmmakers the chance to show what they could do. The most significant directors to emerge from Taiwan New Cinema’s first wave were Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Hou participated in two of the key early new wave films — writing “Growing Up” and directing the first segment in an anthology film called “The Sandwich Man” — before reeling off a half-dozen features that, by the 1989 release of “A City of Sadness,” had cemented his place as one of international cinema’s most exciting directors.
After his work on “The Sandwich Man,” Hou directed “The Boys from Fengkuei” before embarking on his “Coming of Age” Trilogy, which consisted of “A Summer at Grandpa’s” and the two films from the box set, “A Time to Live, a Time to Die” and “Dust in the Wind.” Like many of the films of the Taiwan New Cinema’s first wave, they are set in the past — the former takes place during the late 40s and early 50s of Hou’s childhood and the latter is derived from screenwriter Wu Nien-Jen’s experiences in the 70s. Employing long takes shot with deep focus photography, the director’s naturalistic depictions of Taiwanese life thrilled the festival circuit, though more often than not Hou and his new wave compatriots failed to parlay their international acclaim into domestic box office success.