Film Details

In addition to Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang was the other great director to emerge from the New Taiwanese Cinema movement of the 1980s. Taipei Story, the second of his seven features and “the film that introduced Yang's prodigious talent to the West” (Time Out Film Guide), was co-written by Hou. Hou also stars in the movie, playing a failed businessman who was once a promising baseball prospect. His relationship with his longtime girlfriend, a businesswoman, is also on the verge of collapse. Their story unfolds in a fast-modernizing Taipei that threatens to leave its more traditional citizens behind. Yang’s astute sense of space, his emotional cool, and his crisp, immaculate compositions and camerawork explain why he is frequently likened to Antonioni.