On a dark and rainy night, a historic and regal Taipei cinema sees its final film: 1967 martial arts feature “Dragon Inn”. As the film plays, the lives of the theater’s various employees and patrons intersect, and two ghostly actors arrive to mourn the passing of an era.1
Last month, I finally got around to watching Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn 不散 (2003). You can probably tell from the premise pasted above but it’s a film that touches with a lot of themes that I love to write about: cinema, nostalgia, and mourning. It’s the kind of movie that means different things to different people. And I guess there is an art in that kind of vulnerability. A crowd of a hundred people will all gather in one location at one specific time, seated in front of the same screen, see the same moving images, but feel different things. How fascinating.
When I was watching Goodbye, Dragon Inn, I couldn’t help but think about a very specific memory that I had kept and cherished close to my heart for a majority of my adolescent and early-adult life. From the age of eight to maybe thirteen, my family and I had made bi-weekly trips to our local cinema in Seoul to watch whatever was playing that weekend. One of my earliest memories at the cinema involved Nolan’s Inception (2010), in which my parents and I had attended a near-midnight screening of the film as all the earlier times were sold out. I remember entering the cinema half-asleep as my mom lectured me about Nolan’s career as a film-maker and how I was kicking inside her stomach as she watched Memento (2000) almost a decade prior. All I wanted was to sleep. But I left the film amazed (or as amazed as a nine year old could be with a sub-par Paprika retelling) as I begged my parents if we could rewatch the film at its earliest showtime the same day. My parents laughed at my insanity and we walked home holding hands as we talked about our interpretations of the film. The same cinema closed a few years after I had watched Inception for the first time and I felt what felt like my first experience at heartbreak. After years of regarding the cinema as my second-home and fostering a routine around the sanctuary, it suddenly closed down. The cinema is now replaced with a small arcade of commercial cafes. I also had to walk through it to get to work during my gap year in Seoul years later.
Thinking about Tsai’s masterpiece has been such a different experience to thinking about my favourite films. I can’t say that Goodbye, Dragon Inn is my favourite film, or even part of my top ten, but it has revived a dormant part of my identity. For the past few years, my relationship with film watching had rapidly developed. I started by journalling my reviews, and then writing smaller-scale ones on Letterboxd and twitter, and to publishing them for public acknowledgement from people I wanted to impress. During my first year, I remember someone replied to one of my reviews and said something along the lines of ‘I could never write such a soulless review haha’ and it really did a number on my self-confidence as an amateur film critic. I also felt extremely burnt-out from writing during the festival cycle and temporarily stopped writing as my voice felt redundant at best. And as paradoxical as it seems, Tsai’s melancholy lament on the death of cinema is exactly what I needed to push me to start writing my thoughts again.
As I near my twenty-second birthday, I want to start a small tradition. I think one of the most genuine parts of my identity come from cinema. It’s ultimately what makes me feel the most me, and it would be a shame to not share it in my writing. Every year, I want to reflect and write about the films that have made me cry, smile, and feel something new. I really hope I can look back and think about all the memories I have associated with these films, and hopefully you can add some new films to your watchlist! This isn’t a list of my favourite films, but rather films that I watched this year that I want to write about as I close a chapter of my life with my birthday approaching. It’s also in no specific order or ranking. It would also be impossible for me to choose a list of my favourites films and be able to fit them all in one post.
Yi Yi (2000) Dir. Edward Yang / Jan 22, 2023
I watched Yi Yi on a random Sunday at the BFI with my usual 25&Under three-pound concession ticket. And it’s probably the best three pounds I have spent in my life. I went into it kind of blind and expected a family drama, but came out of it literally clutching my chest. It’s a film that is so simple, yet filled to the brim with so many emotional layers. I still don’t even know where to begin with this one. You feel different things with each family member as the film navigates what life means to each one of them. The movie allows you to feel so much bitterness and pain with the characters and then collectedly let go as they let go as Yang begins to untangle the film’s web of relationships and events. I somehow felt so much for each character, regardless of their age and situation, as they navigated through a sense of mundanity. It’s nothing visually shocking or narratively contrived, but a quiet film that has the biggest heart.
In ways, Yi Yi feels like family. It feels like being in the arms of my grandma. And then falling asleep at the foot of her bed. It feels forgiving in a time of turmoil. Like a gentle touch of reassurance amidst a sea of confusion. I found it oddly comforting to see the different struggles that come regardless of age. Life is difficult for everyone in this film because it’s ultimately their first go at it. Just like everyone else. Yi Yi is a masterpiece that I am confident I will love until I am old and if you take one film away from this list, go watch this.
Millenium Mambo (2001) Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien / June 18, 2023
I watched this quite recently after reading a review about it somewhere on Letterboxd. And I ended up trying to cling onto every single minute and frame of this film as the ending credits started to roll on my laptop screen. I know Rhea is watching this soon and I am so jealous that she is watching this on a big screen. There is just something about how this film uses electronic music and the flashy setting of Taipei’s night life that so vulnerably portrays sentiments of hurt and frustration with incredible depth. The nostalgic narration and contrasting colour palettes of neon and grey work so well as even the seemingly vacant moments that exist within these palettes serve to create some sort of intimacy. This film makes me forever scared to look back at my youth, but even more scared to live through it thinking of anything as pre-determined.
On the Beach at Night Alone (2017) Dir. Hong Sang-soo / June 11, 2023
After years of putting off watching Hong’s films, I have finally watched two of his films! And no surprise, they’re beautiful. Hong’s direction just feels so delicate. His beautiful dialogue paired with the raw, natural landscapes of everyday life makes this such a personal and human watch. Kim Min-hee may be my favourite actress. She is at the centre of this film, and delivers one of my favourite performances ever. Maybe it’s because of the real-life context between KMH and HSS, but something about the film feels out of territory. Like we aren’t supposed to be watching this. It just feels so real. A beautiful beginning to my Hong Sang-soo watchlist. I also think Hong is the kind of filmmaker you learn to adore with age. A lot of his films deal with time and letting go in ways that feel too complicated to understand at twenty one. I am excited to see where this leads me to as I watch more of his films.
Oslo, August 31st (2011) Dir. Joachim Trier / July 10, 2023
Kind of familiar with Trier’s style (with The Worst Person in the World being a modern classic, duh), I went into Oslo, August 31st with a certain expectation that comes with the usual coming-of-age model. But nothing could have prepared me for the last act of this film. My heart literally sank so hard so fast. It wasn’t a cheap fake-out or a narrative jolt, it was more like the film confirming my worst guesses possible and making into the film’s reality. As we follow Anders, a recovering drug addict, who comes out of rehab to attend a job interview, we aren’t sure if he wants his old life back. We see him interact with old friends, acquaintances, and strangers as he internally grapples with his identity. I won’t say anymore because the film is quite a journey of subtle optimism and stark pessimism that you just can’t help but feel tremendously for as more about his life is uncovered. Anders Danielsen Lie’s performance is so captivating, it reminded me a lot of Mescal’s in Aftersun…which says a lot. This film does a lot with deconstructing the internal and then projecting towards an external. The main conflict of self-identity and addiction manifests in Anders’ performance, but also the passing of time in the film as a whole. The two seem to be interlinked. We often associate our mental with our physical surroundings, and I love how we see the development of his character with the city setting of Oslo from one morning to the next. A perfect embodiment of Show Don’t Tell.
Riceboy Sleeps (2022) Dir. Anthony Shim / August 22, 2023
Despite the fact that I watched this on a plane like two weeks ago, Riceboy Sleeps just won’t leave my mind. I actually haven’t watched a single movie in two weeks because I am still emotionally recovering from this. We’ve seen so many Korean diaspora films in recent years, from the good ones like Minari (2020) and the questionable ones like Return to Seoul (2022). I went into this film with zero, or actually, negative expectations, because of the nature of this film. What more can be said about Koreans who move to the U.S./Canada that hasn’t already been said on screen? I often find that diaspora films do so little with so much potential. Take Past Lives (2023) for example, it literally uses Korean culture and a Korean character as a starting off point to explore ‘bigger’ themes such as identity, but does it half-heartedly with little to no authenticity. When I watched Return to Seoul (2022) with my Korean mom at the BFI, we couldn’t stop cringing at the awkward Korean dialogue and the outdated references to Korean culture (seeming as though the director isn’t Korean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he found “Korean” information on a reddit thread written by a white man). If you are going to explore cultural roots, do it with respect and care!
Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps is everything I wanted a Korean disapora movie to be. It does so much with so little. We follow a single mom, So-young, and her young son, Ethan, as they move to Canada from Korea following the death of her husband. We see them navigate through work and school, respectively, as they learn to become the people that they need to be to survive in such a culturally different environment. The film’s narrative spans about ten years, as we see the mother and son grow. It’s not perfect, but no attempt at representation can be. I just want to credit the film’s earnestness in its portrayal of how culture impacts growth, because I still can’t stop thinking about the emotional gut punch of a third act of this film when the two return back to Korea. But even with outthe elements of diaspora, Riceboy Sleeps is an extremely delicate film. The way the camera moves in accordance with the good times and the bad times makes the narrative arc of anger, for both So-young and Ethan, so visceral. Despite the quiet sound design and serene cinematography, you can quite literally feel the film’s aching to the core.
Shim’s verbal and visual storytelling reminds me a lot of how I used to feel as a kid. As someone that struggled with identity and the insecurity that followed not being able to speak your cultural tongue fluently without hiccups in your accent, this film felt like what I needed to see when I was a young teenager. It really amazes me how people like Shim and Lee Issac Chung can craft films with such vulnerability and relatability. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of home and where I regard my home to be. I have something brewing so I hope to be able to publish that whenever I feel like I am ready to.
P.S. Let me know if you’ve seen any of these or if you end up watching any of these films!
https://letterboxd.com/film/goodbye-dragon-inn/
You write so beautifully. I miss you a lot. :(