Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), who won the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival in France on Sunday with his first martial arts film, The Assassin (聶隱娘), said that his next project would be a movie about a river goddess set in the modern era.
Speaking at a seminar in Brussels on Wednesday, Hou said that Taipei used to have many waterways for paddy irrigation, but many of the waterways have since been covered over by roads as a result of urbanization.
If there were a river goddess, she would feel very sad about the situation, Hou said.
Photo: Reuters
Screenwriter Chu Tien-wen (朱天文) said Hou’s new project would be about a waterway enthusiast who encounters a river goddess while studying the city’s waterway system.
Actress Shu Qi (舒淇), the protagonist in The Assassin, would play the role of the river goddess, the 68-year-old director said.
The seminar was part of the “Taiwan Film Panorama” and “Hou Hsiao-hsien Retrospective” held by the Belgian Royal Cinematek.
The exhibition began with a screening of The Assassin on Wednesday, with about 260 people from political, economic, social and arts circles in Belgium and the EU attending.
Speaking to reporters, Hou said he is concerned that there are not many directors who are passionate about their craft, with enough conviction to make movies according to their own standards.
Hou said it is tough to be a director in Taiwan because of the pressure to create a box-office success while seeking a balance between one’s convictions and the views of movie companies and investors.
“These days in Taiwan, you can hardly find a director with the passion and conviction to simply insist that a movie be shot in a particular way or to say: ‘This is how I would like it to be,’” Hou said.
Hou is one of the few Taiwanese directors who are capable of finding funds abroad to support their film ideas.
Still, he has always tried to shoot artistic movies with minimal budgets, he said.
“I know a lot of movie directors would love to shoot grand movies with a big cast and big stars. I don’t find it necessary,” Hou said.
He said he prefers to use digital cameras and fresh faces as his key actors, which can be done on a smaller budget without the restraints imposed by investors.
To make emotional films, “the most fundamental thing is to have a strong impulse to do so,” Hou said. “You also need to have a special feeling about the environment in which you grew up.”
On the criticism that The Assassin is not an easy movie to understand because of the complexity of the main character, Hou said: “If you can understand it, just enjoy it; if you can’t, why not just appreciate it [as a work of art].”
“There are infinite types of films,” he said. “Just watch them in your own way. It’s OK to fall asleep in front of the big screen if you’re there just out of curiosity about the movie.”
‘HIDDEN GEM’: The city earned plaudits for its low crime rate, world-class healthcare system, cheap cost of living and easy public transportation Taipei has been named the 10th best city in the world for quality of living in an annual survey by the editors of Monocle, a UK-based global affairs and lifestyle magazine. The survey, which is to be published in the magazine’s July/August issue, selected the world’s top 25 cities based on factors including cost of living, retail, hospitality, culture and access to green spaces, as well as feedback from Monocle correspondents. Taipei’s 10th place finish was one place down from a year earlier. The survey ranked Copenhagen as the world’s best city, with Zurich, Lisbon, Helsinki and Stockholm rounding out the top five.
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
NO COMORBIDITIES: The girl died of encephalitis, the sixth COVID-19-related death of the disease this year and 19th death of a child from the virus, the center said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 52,213 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and 171 deaths from the virus, including a four-year-old girl, who had been diagnosed with encephalitis, and a 19-year-old man, who had underlying health conditions. “The caseloads are usually higher on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but they [yesterday] fell 7.3 percent from the day before,” Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said. Chuang, who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that most cities and counties reported a drop in new cases, and the CECC expects fewer than 50,000 new cases today. The center said that 150 of
LIMIT: The CECC has capped the number of weekly arrivals to 25,000, which critics said has limited the number of available flights and caused ticket prices to soar The government is not likely to raise the cap on the number of inbound travelers before the end of this month, despite the apparent effect on the number of inbound flights, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday last week eased quarantine rules for inbound travelers, who must undergo three days of home quarantine upon arrival and spend another four days in self-initiated disease prevention. It also capped the number of inbound travelers to 25,000 per week. The weekly limit has drawn criticism that it has limited the number of flights
RSS