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Hou Hsiao-hsien
Director / Screenwriter
1947 -  
Born April 8, Meixian, Guangdong, China
Key Production Countries: Taiwan, France
Key Genres: Drama, Family Drama, Period Film, Coming-of-Age, Romantic Drama
Key Collaborators: Tien-wen Chu (Screenwriter), Pin Bing Lee (Cinematographer), Ching-Song Liao (Editor), Wen-Ying Huang (Production Designer/Producer),Jack Kao (Leading Player),  Tianlu Li (Leading Player), Annie Shizuka Inoh (Leading Player), Shozo Ichiyama (Producer), Nien-Jen Wu (Screenwriter), Giong Lim (Leading Character Player/Composer)

Highly Recommended: A City of Sadness (1989)*
Recommended: The Boys from Fengkuei (1983), The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)*, Dust in the Wind (1987), The Puppetmaster (1993)*, Flowers of Shanghai (1998)*, Café Lumière (2003)^, Three Times (2005)^, Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)^
Worth a Look: A Summer at Grandpa's (1984), Good Men, Good Women (1995), Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996), Millennium Mambo (2001)
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section; ^ Listed in TSPDT's 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films section.

 
 
 
Links: [ Amazon ] [ 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 ] [ Reverse Shot Feature (2008) ]
Books: [ Hou Hsiao-hsien ] [ Toward a Semiotics of Chinese Cinema (Jinquan Hu, Hou Hsiao-hsien) ]
 
A City of Sadness (1989)The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)Cafe Lumiere (2003)Dust in the Wind (1986)
 
     
  "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)  
     
  "You have to find the right way to approach the right subject for yourself. No one can do that for you. You may not be aware of your great potentiality. You do not need to make films that we think are proper, or feel compelled to make certain kinds of films because they have been praised or recognised. Never let yourself be tied up by these thoughts. Be creative and unpredictable for every film you make. That’s best. This is all I want to say." - Hou Hsiao-hsien, Rouge, 2003  
     
 
Please note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we haven't seen include Son's Big Doll (1983).
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"Hou Hsiao-hsien is frequently heralded as one of the premier auteurs of the Taiwanese New Wave. His work engages themes of political, cultural, and personal transition , frequently through oblique narratives grounded upon generational conflicts. Like the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Hou's minimalist yet meticulous mise-en-scène depicts not only life's seemingly insignificant details, but the impact of time and light upon the understanding of character and history... A hugely talented visionary, Hou is one of the greatest storytellers of this, or any, age." - Jay McRoy, 501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

 
Café Lumière
 
Top 250 Directors
21st Century Top 50
Ranked 15th on Film Comment's list of the 25 Best Directors of the Decade (2000-2009)
One of the twelve greatest living narrative filmmakers - Jonathan Rosenbaum (Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism, 1993)
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors
 
See Also
Robert Bresson
Im Kwon-Taek
Stanley Kwan
Lou Ye
Kenji Mizoguchi
Yasujiro Ozu
Hiroshi Shimizu
Tian Zhuangzhuang
Tran Anh Hung
Wong Kar-wai
Edward Yang
Zhang Yimou
 
Hou Hsiao-hsien's Favourites
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) Werner Herzog, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Amarcord (1973) Federico Fellini, Breathless (1960) Jean-Luc Godard, Distant Thunder (1973) Satyajit Ray, Floating Clouds (1955) Mikio Naruse, The Godfather (1972) Francis Ford Coppola, Kings of the Road (1976) Wim Wenders, A Short Film About Love (1988) Krszystof Kieslowski, Tokyo Story (1953) Yasujiro Ozu. Source: Sight & Sound (1992)
 
 
 
         
         

 

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