Three TimesFrance / Taiwan Province of China
2005, 135min.
 Script.: T'ien-wen Chu, Hsiao-hsien Hou, Dir.: Hsiao-hsien Hou, Dir. of Phot.: Pin Bing Lee, Prod. Design: Wen-Ying Huang, Sound: Du-Che Tu, Edit.: Ching-Song Liao, Prod.: Hua-fu Chang, Wen-Ying Huang, Ching-Song Liao.
Cast: Chen Chang, Mei Di, Su-jen Liao, Fang Mei, Qi Shu.
Three different stories in three different ways, so the viewer is treated to an unparalleled display of versatility. The three stories are situated in three different periods and each of them is a tragic love story. The first part, A time for love, is set in the 1960s, in Hou's youth. It is a very contained melodrama. The last part, A time for youth, is set in today's Taipei. It shows the city as a hotspot, supported by the calming music of Lim Giong. The middle section, A time for freedom, is set furthest in the past and could be described as the tour de force of the three. It is set at the beginning of the 20th century, during the occupation of Taiwan by Japan. It has the style of a silent film from that period. | Hou, Hsiao-hsien Hsiao-hsien Hou born 1947, Meixian, Guangdong, China.
In 1948, his family moved to Taiwan. In 1969-72, Hou studied film at the National Taiwan Arts Academy. He began his film career as a scriptwriter and assistant director. Hou's films are often concerned with his experiences of growing up in rural Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s marked a time in which refugee families from the mainland were struggling painfully for survival, while the 1960s saw the beginning of the most significant social change in modern Taiwan. The economic boom of that period meant the beginning of Western-style industrialization. Hiou’s stories in a poetic yet relaxed style reflect a deep sympathy and a profound humanism. Of the ten films that he directed between 1980 and 1989, seven received best film or best director awards from prestigious international films festivals in Venice, Berlin and the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide critics' poll, Hou was championed as "one of the three directors most crucial to the future of cinema." Hou was voted the most important director of the 1990s by the International Society of Cinèmathèques.
Filmography
The Boys from Fenkuei (1983), A Summer at Grandpa`s (Dongdong de jiaqi, 1984), A Time to Live, A Time to Die (Tong nien wang shi, 1985), Dust in the Wind (Lianlian fengchen, 1986), Daughter of the Nile (Niluohe nuer, 1987), A City of Sadness (Beiging chengshi, 1989), The Puppetmaster (Hsimeng jensheng, 1993), Good Men, Good Women (Haonan haonu, 1995), Goodbye South, Goodbye (Nanguo zaijian, nanguo, 1996), Flowers of Shanghai (Hai shan hua, 1998), Millennium Mambo (Qianxi manbo, 2001), Café Lumiere (Kohi jikou, 2004), Three Times (Zui hao de shi guang, 2005).
|
