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`Cafe Lumiere,' don't call it Hou's comeback

Hou Hsiao-hsien and Japanese actress Yo Hitoto. PHOTO: LEE KAI-MING, TAIPEI TIMES

Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) is reclaiming his crown as Taiwan's dominant filmmaker. His latest film Cafe Lumiere has been selected for the official competition of the 61st Venice Film Festival, which begins Sept. 1.

Meanwhile, the organizers of the 9th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), which begins Oct. 7, announced that the Asian Filmmaker of the Year prize would be given to Hou.

Cafe Lumiere is Hou's 16th movie. Shot in Japan, with Japanese actors, it is the first time for Hou to shoot a film entirely in a foreign location in a foreign language. Giant production company Shochiku Films (松竹映畫) hired Hou to make a Japanese film and pay homage to Japanese filmmaking master Yasujiro Ozu on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

Hou has been an admirer of Ozu's movies since A Time to Live and A Time To Die (童年往事) and his films have been described as feeling similar to Ozu's movies.

The movie is a meeting of minds and talents. It is a re-telling of Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story for the 21st century and portrays everyday life in modern Japan from the viewpoint of a Taiwanese director.

Tadanobu Asano, the handsome samurai in Kitano's Zaitochi and first-time actress/singer Yo Hitoto are the lead actors. Hitoto appears in Kirin beer's TV ads in Taiwan.

The story is about Yoko (Hitoto), a freelance writer, who becomes friends with the proprietor of a secondhand bookstore, Hajime (Asano). Raised in the rural town of Yubari by her uncle, Yoko is an independent young woman with a hidden sorrow.

She becomes pregnant and the father of the child is Taiwanese. Yoko begins to reevaluate her view of her family, Hajime, and the new life growing inside her.

The side story is about about Taiwanese musician Jiang Wen-ye (江文也), who was the talk of the Japanese music world in the 1930s.

As Hou readies himself to go to Venice, the good news from South Korea is that he was told by Kim Ji-seok, programmer of PIFF, that he will be made Asian Filmmaker of the Year.

"We are very pleased to give the first award to Taiwanese director Hou," Kim said last weekend.

"Cafe Lumiere is a film with great meaning. It provides a conversation between two masters, between past and present and between Japan and Taiwan," he said.
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