Howard Schumann
04-19-2004, 10:01 AM
BOYS FROM FENGKUEI (Fengkuei-lai-te jen)
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien (1983)
Searching for a specifically Chinese approach to filmmaking, Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Boys From Fengkuei was the first film in what has become the traditional Hou style, extended long takes and a fixed-camera angle that heightens the sense of real time. The film depicts the social and economic changes taking place in postwar Taiwan as reflected in the lives of ordinary working class teenagers. After finishing school, the friends have little to do but spend time getting into trouble with the police. They play crude practical jokes, gamble, drink, fight, and chase girls as they wait for compulsory military service. The most introspective of the group, Ah-Ching lives in two worlds, the dissonant world of his buddies and the traditional culture that comes back to him in flashes of memory of his father when he was a young boy.
Constantly berated by his mother for his lack of ambition, Ah-Ching and two friends leave their traditional island home in Penghu to look for work in the Southern city of Kaohsiung. On the surface, the boys are street-wise, but beneath their swagger, their naivete is apparent when they are conned into paying to see non-existent porn movies on the 11th floor of a high-rise building. Ah-Ching's sister offers the boys an apartment and they find jobs in a local factory but an infatuation with a hoodlum's girl friend leaves Ah-Ching more alone than when he came. The only film of Hou to use Western classical music as a background, The Boys From Fengkuei is a work of nostalgia and remembrance, touching on love, respect for tradition, and the joy and pain of growing up.
GRADE: A-
A SUMMER AT GRANDPA'S (Dongdong de jiaqi)
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien (1984)
Tung-Tung and his 4-year old sister (Sun Cheeng-Lee) spend the summer in the country with their grandparents when their mother is hospitalized due to a gall bladder problem. Told from the point of view of 11-year old Tung-Tung (Wang Chi-Kwang), Hou Hsiao-hsien's Summer at Grandpa's is a sublime meditation on growing up and its inevitable loss of innocence. Hou shows how the children try to insulate themselves from the outside world but can never quite escape it, being compelled to include adult events in their life of which they have little comprehension. Ting-Ting writes beautiful letters to his parents that show a delicate sensitivity but also a lack of understanding of what the adults around him are up to.
In typical Hou fashion, each character has strong points and weaknesses. The grandfather (Koo Chuen), a doctor, is loving but also harshly judgmental, forbidding the children's uncle to marry his girlfriend, and the uncle shows an immaturity that belies his age. The children also are complex characters whose reactions reflect their inability to express their feelings. For example, when the boys go swimming without her, Tung-Tung lashes out by taking their clothes and floating them down the river. One of Hou's most accessible works and one of his warmest, Summer at Grandpa's contains a hint of melodrama, but it is balanced with Hou's typical sense of the natural rhythm and flow of life.
GRADE: A-
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien (1983)
Searching for a specifically Chinese approach to filmmaking, Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Boys From Fengkuei was the first film in what has become the traditional Hou style, extended long takes and a fixed-camera angle that heightens the sense of real time. The film depicts the social and economic changes taking place in postwar Taiwan as reflected in the lives of ordinary working class teenagers. After finishing school, the friends have little to do but spend time getting into trouble with the police. They play crude practical jokes, gamble, drink, fight, and chase girls as they wait for compulsory military service. The most introspective of the group, Ah-Ching lives in two worlds, the dissonant world of his buddies and the traditional culture that comes back to him in flashes of memory of his father when he was a young boy.
Constantly berated by his mother for his lack of ambition, Ah-Ching and two friends leave their traditional island home in Penghu to look for work in the Southern city of Kaohsiung. On the surface, the boys are street-wise, but beneath their swagger, their naivete is apparent when they are conned into paying to see non-existent porn movies on the 11th floor of a high-rise building. Ah-Ching's sister offers the boys an apartment and they find jobs in a local factory but an infatuation with a hoodlum's girl friend leaves Ah-Ching more alone than when he came. The only film of Hou to use Western classical music as a background, The Boys From Fengkuei is a work of nostalgia and remembrance, touching on love, respect for tradition, and the joy and pain of growing up.
GRADE: A-
A SUMMER AT GRANDPA'S (Dongdong de jiaqi)
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien (1984)
Tung-Tung and his 4-year old sister (Sun Cheeng-Lee) spend the summer in the country with their grandparents when their mother is hospitalized due to a gall bladder problem. Told from the point of view of 11-year old Tung-Tung (Wang Chi-Kwang), Hou Hsiao-hsien's Summer at Grandpa's is a sublime meditation on growing up and its inevitable loss of innocence. Hou shows how the children try to insulate themselves from the outside world but can never quite escape it, being compelled to include adult events in their life of which they have little comprehension. Ting-Ting writes beautiful letters to his parents that show a delicate sensitivity but also a lack of understanding of what the adults around him are up to.
In typical Hou fashion, each character has strong points and weaknesses. The grandfather (Koo Chuen), a doctor, is loving but also harshly judgmental, forbidding the children's uncle to marry his girlfriend, and the uncle shows an immaturity that belies his age. The children also are complex characters whose reactions reflect their inability to express their feelings. For example, when the boys go swimming without her, Tung-Tung lashes out by taking their clothes and floating them down the river. One of Hou's most accessible works and one of his warmest, Summer at Grandpa's contains a hint of melodrama, but it is balanced with Hou's typical sense of the natural rhythm and flow of life.
GRADE: A-