A City of Sadness

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Golden Lion-winning landmark film of New Taiwanese Cinema captures Taiwan’s postwar transformation and its lingering personal traumas.

Set in Taiwan in the immediate wake of World War II, A City of Sadness charts the tumultuous years of upheaval as the island transitions out of Japanese imperialist rule back to being ruled by mainland China, all through the perspective of the Lin family. The first Taiwanese feature to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s illustrious epic explores war’s repercussions through the experiences of four brothers – particularly Wen-ching (Tony Leung Chiu-wai, in his breakout role), a deaf-mute photographer whose quiet perspective grounds the story – to reveal how a national trauma reverberates through ordinary lives.

The first chapter of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s celebrated historical trilogy, A City of Sadness is a stately, quietly wrenching centrepiece of New Taiwanese Cinema. Relying on a visual language of doorways and layered interiors, Hou composes elegant, painterly tableaus to beautifully frame and focus the story’s emotional core. The film also marked a baby-faced Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s arrival on the global stage: his riveting, near-silent performance (originating from his inability to speak Taiwanese or Mandarin) stands out from the ensemble for its extraordinary physicality.