TSPDT - Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

One of the twelve greatest living narrative filmmakers - Jonathan Rosenbaum ("Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism" - 1993)

Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors

►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

See Also

Im Kwon-Taek

Stanley Kwan

Kenji Mizoguchi

Yasujiro Ozu

Tian Zhuangzhuang

Tran Anh Hung

Wong Kar-Wai

Edward Yang

Zhang Yimou

Director / Screenwriter / Producer

1947 -

Born April 8, Meixian, Guangdong, China

Key Production Country: Taiwan

Key Genres: Drama, Family Drama, Period Film

Key Collaborators: Tien-wen Chu (Screenwriter), Pin Bing Lee (Cinematographer), Ching-Song Liao (Editor), Jack Kao (Leading Player), Wen-Ying Huang (Production Designer/Producer), Tianlu Li (Leading Player), Annie Shizuka Inoh (Leading Player), Shozo Ichiyama (Producer), Nien-Jen Wu (Screenwriter), Giong Lim (Leading Character Player)

Highly Recommended: A City of Sadness (1989)

Recommended: The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985), Dust in the Wind (1986), Flowers of Shanghai (1998), Cafe Lumiere (2003), Three Times (2005), Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)

Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ Strictly Film School ] [ Guardian Unlimited Interview (2005) ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Senses of Cinema Article ] [ Senses of Cinema Feature (2006) ] [ Sight & Sound Article (2006) ] [ Film Comment Article (1999) ] [ Cinetext Essay (2003) ] [ China Through a Lens Profile ]

Books: [ Hou Hsiao-Hsien ] [ Toward a Semiotics of Chinese Cinema (Jinquan Hu, Hou Hsiao-Hsien) ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985), A City of Sadness (1989), The Puppetmaster (1993), Flowers of Shanghai (1998)

21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films: Cafe Lumiere (2003), Three Times (2005)

The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)


	"His contemplative style is at times reminiscent of Ozu, with its generally static camera and simple compositions (though he usually favours far longer takes), and his early films likewise portray tensions in the family...Hou's quiet, impressionistic narratives build steadily to an emotional pay-off that is often devastating when it finally comes." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

	"Hou is an extraordinary director - gentle, reflective, beautifully composed, inclined to hold his shots in space and duration. He exemplifies that natural, fluent style that unites so many of the most thoughtful directors. I urge any reader to seek out his work, in whatever form it can be found." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)

	"Hou Hsiao-hsien is the most internationally renowned of the filmmakers associated with Taiwan's "New Cinema" movement. The "New Cinema" was forged out of the country's aging industry in the early 1980s by a group of emerging filmmakers, most of whom were in their early thirties at the time...Hou's achievement is not only in his cinematic sensitivities but also in his social consciousness. As much as he is a filmmaker, Hou is a historical and social commentator of the first order.." - Vivian Huang (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)