Zui hao de shi guang (2005)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writers:

T'ien-wen Chu (writer)
Hsiao-hsien Hou (writer)

Release Date:

27 October 2005 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Three stories set in three times, 1911, 1966 and 2005. Two actors play the two main characters in each story.

Plot Keywords:

Singer | Photographer | Chinese | Revolution | Beatles

Awards:

4 wins & 10 nominations

Cast

Qi Shu	...	May / Ah Mei / Jing
Chen Chang	...	Chen / Mr. Chang / Zhen
Fang Mei	...	Old Woman
Su-jen Liao	...	Madam / Jing's mother
Mei Di	...	May's mother / Madam
Shi-Zheng Chen	...	Haruko / Ah Mei
Lee Pei-Hsuan	...	Hostess / Micky
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yue-Lin Ko	...	(special appearance)

Also Known As:

Three Times (International: English title)
Zuei hao de shih guang (Taiwan)

Runtime:

USA:120 min | France:132 min | UK:135 min | Canada:139 min (Toronto International Film Festival)

Country:

France | Taiwan

Language:

Mandarin | Taiwanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Taiwan:PG-12 | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Singapore:NC-16 | Netherlands:AL | UK:12A | South Korea:15

Filming Locations:

Taiwan

Company:

3H Films

Trivia:

The song Rain and Tears is based on Pachelbel's Canon

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The 1966 story used the song "Rain and Tears" by Aphrodite's Child which was not released until 1968.

Soundtrack:

Rain and Tears

Lovely, but not without its demands...

My girlfriend is always complaining that I rent gory, hateful Italian horror movies like 'Strip Naked For Your Killer' and 'Cannibal Holocaust', so I figured I'd switch it up and introduce her to the wild world of Hou. I should have stuck with 'Strip Naked...'! She complained the entire time that the film was too slow, that the characters were too vague and the whole thing, well, 'sucked'.

In my opinion, this was a graceful, magnificent film, but it is, what I like to call a 'Phantom Masterpiece' that is, a film which culminates a director's many obsessions, but doesn't really have that special punch that makes masterwork status unequivocal. I felt 'In the Mood For Love' by Wong Kar-Wai was a similar disappointment when compared to his 'true' masterpieces 'Happy Together', 'Chungking Express' and 'Fallen Angels'.

So, while you're right to expect a lot from this movie, don't expect a 'Flowers of Shanghai'.

Regardless, I found this film very fascinating, and one viewer's comment on IMDb about the film as a meta film is interesting, especially when you consider that framing shots of different actors in different times and places are virtually identical sequence to sequence. For instance, when a woman opens a letter, she's shot from exactly the same vantage point every time, regardless of the origins of the letter or herself. Its just too idiosyncratic to not be meaningful.

Also, a lot of this film is playfully back lit as characters are reduced almost to shadows for much of the action, however, as they move through the frame, light finds them and its really quite incredible.

If you are a true film fan, or a fan or Ozu, Haneke, Bresson, or Antonioni, you'll love this.