Word: hou
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...come down from your world to mine," says a frustrated Hao-hao to his girlfriend Vicky. "That's why you don't understand my world." Don't blame the poor girl: nobody else gets it either, and that includes both Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien and, very likely, his audience. Hou has swapped his wonted rural palette for the urban hip of Taipei, but for all his efforts to capture the contemporary, Mambo feels mute...
...takes Hou two hours to show us the workings of this relationship, which extends little beyond breezy copulative invective. There are the makings of a fine film within this relationship, but the feckless script won't let it develop. We feel Vicky's intense claustrophobia, but no matter how many cigarettes Shu Qi lights (35 by this reviewer's count), the smoke rises and vanishes into thin nothing. The palpitant star gets more screen time here than in her past 20 films combined and you can't help but look at her, but she is given too little substance from...
...booming, rough-and-tumble Guangdong province, scores of factories cluster together, their front yards choked with piles of twisted metal, junked plastic and old computer parts. But the killers who struck in the predawn hours of July 16 knew exactly which path would take them to their targets: Hou Kuo-li and Yeh Ming-yi, a pair of middle-aged businessmen from Taiwan who lived in the Lianjiao plant. Their bodies were discovered later that morning, along with those of two Chinese security guards and a 17-year-old female employee. According to news reports, all had their throats slit...
...small Taiwanese business community. The following day, Taiwanese managers of neighboring plants didn't show up for work. Many cleared out of town to lie low for a few days. Those who stayed behind spoke tensely. "We're here to do business," said Liao Mu-san, who like Hou and Yeh deals in scrap metals. "It's every man for himself...
...breakthrough finally came when Hou Hsiao-hsien cast her in Millennium Mambo as Vicky, a nightclub hostess torn between two men. Hou initially worried that Shu Qi wouldn't be daring enough, that she didn't have the artistic depth to push herself to explore the far range of emotional experiences. "My first impression was that she was completely overworked," says the director. "Hong Kong's film industry does not provide, like Hollywood, systematic help to provide a good acting environment to inspire professional works. A lot of actors and actresses in Taiwan and Hong Kong become weary...