Lion On Films (Volume 8)

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “The Assassin” was originated from the classic “Legendary” created by Pei Xing lived in the Tang Dynasty. The language of the whole film is all written in ancient Classical Chinese (also known as “Literary Chinese”). Silent and beautiful images with artistic and recondite realms, which had kept the shifting long-shot cinematography that the director persists since his early works. Mark Lee Ping-Bing, holding a post as the cinematographer, shot the entire work with filmstrip (which is seldom used in today’s film industry, and normally replaced by digital technology). The narrative method was also adopted the conception of the Classical Chinese articles. The dialogue was compact but concise, the over description was superseded with the elegant landscape. This kind of traditional Chinese expression, which is at odds with the trend, can be found in the film history quite rarely.

Throughout Hou’s numerous films, it can be divided into three theme forms: Local Type (such as “A Time to Live, A Time to Die”, “Dust in the Wind” and “Goodbye South, Goodbye”), Nostalgia Type (such as “Flowers of Shanghai” and “The Assassin”) and Youth Type (such as “Millennium Mambo”). Hou Hsiao-Hsien made a film called “Three Times” to summarize his temporary film career, interestingly recounting three love stories happened in three different periods, which were represented the three forms mentioned above exactly. It is able to feel sensitively during the development of the director’s creation, that with the accumulation of time, that kind of sharp impulse which once can be found in the film “A City of Sadness”, becomes solid and profound gradually.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

侯孝贤的《刺客聂隐娘》典出自唐人裴铏所撰《传奇》。全片通篇文言，映象静美，意境深邃，保持了导演一以贯之的长镜头移镜拍摄手法；李屏宾任摄影指导，用胶片拍摄而成。电影叙述手法也采用了古式文言概念，对白精简却显凝练，以清丽山水代替特写赘述。该异于潮流的传统中国式表达，在影史中甚为少见。

通观侯孝贤的众多电影，大致可分为三种题材类型：乡土（童年往事、恋恋风尘、南国再见）、怀旧（海上花、聂隐娘）与青春（千禧曼波）。《最好的时光》是他对自己电影生涯所作的一次总结，分别诉说了三段不同时代背景中的爱情故事。可以察觉，《悲情城市》中的那份冲动锐利，随着时间积淀为了深沉厚重。

Lion On Films (Volume 7)

“The choice when two lovers must change their current situation”, this was the definition of marriage that Edward Yang made in his film “Taipei Story”, and we can also find it in his private family life. However, when Slavoj Žižek was trying to construe Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut”, his opinion show that the two genders are always chasing the so called “self” that he/she imagines which himself/herself should to be in the other (gender)’s mind. But due to the existing differences of each (gender)’s ideology, the irreconcilable comes into being greatly, so the unbridgeable gap takes shape at final.

Ingmar Bergman take it one step further. In his film “Scenes from a Marriage”, he regarded this kind of almost fatal deviation as the key reason of the marriage failure. And he held the thought that love can not be reserved by the form of marriage toughly. After the release of this film, the rate of divorce in Sweden and Denmark increased substantially. However, the director felt very glad when learning the news. He thought that those who didn’t know whether to leave his/her current partner or not, finally made their mind to make a decision. Because of the possible happening of this circumstance, people were becoming more sincere to each others, and of course to themselves.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

“当双方需要改变目前的处境时的选择”，杨德昌在《青梅竹马》中给婚姻下的定义，从他自身的家庭生活中也能体现；而齐泽克在讲解库布里克的《大开眼界》时，他认为两性始终在幻想并追逐对方眼中的自己，但由于存在着各自思维模式的差异性，终致不可调合的南辕北辙，正因如此反而造就了无法跨越的鸿沟。

伯格曼在此基础上更近了一步，他在《婚姻生活》中将这种近乎必然性的背离关系视作婚姻失败的本质，他认为爱并不能硬性地以婚姻的形式长久保存。在他这部作品放映后，瑞典丹麦的离婚率大幅度上升；导演在获知后很高兴，他认为那些迟迟不知是否该离开对方的人终于有勇气下定决心，人们因而彼此更坦诚了。

Lion On Films (Volume 6)

Naturally, the topic turns to Tsai Ming-liang’s films. Tsai is one of the most unique “Second New Wave” film directors of Taiwanese Cinema. None of his films was permitted to release in Malaysia although he was born there. His astonishing longshots with fixed angle are peeping at the emotional demons of the human world thoroughly. The characters in his films were set as some hollow bodies with only desires, so the rational logic was isolated completely. And the gaze with an unbearable long time leaded to a forced thinking by the viewers.

After a film premier during an international film festival, a foreign viewer asked Tsai Ming-liang directly: “What is the internal meaning of the water in your film?” However the director didn’t answer definitely. We drink water once feel thirsty. “Water”, such a normal element that we always ignore in our daily life, is defined as the critical expression method throughout his films. It may represent desire, lust or anything else, self-cycling endlessly and eternally, glutting in every creature’s body and even the whole world.

*The film criticism was written by Simplified Chinese at first (which is my mother tongue), then I translated into English for your reading convenience. And down there is the original version.

这么一来话题又转移到了蔡明亮的电影。蔡明亮是台湾新浪潮中最独特的一位导演，出生于马来西亚的他竟没有一部作品能够在本国上映。他用惊人的固定视角长镜头，洞彻窥视着人类世界的情感魔障；他的电影中的人，仅是被注入欲望的躯体，彻底隔绝了理性逻辑；长时间的凝视与舞台化的表达导致于强迫性思考。

在某次国际影展的放映环节后，一个外国观众直截了当地问蔡明亮：“您作品中的水代表着什么？”他并没有给出明确的答案。正如人渴了就要喝水，“水”这个普通到被忽略的常态元素，在蔡明亮的电影中却被定义为了表达手段：它可以是渴望、情欲或任何东西，它无穷尽循环往复，充斥在每具身体乃至整个世界。