Taipei Story
In the 1980s, the Taiwanese New Wave brought a refreshing breeze to Taiwanese cinema. Directors such as Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang turned their backs on the usual melodramas and kung fu films, opting for films closer to real life in Taiwan instead, with realistic stories about the daily lives of people in the city and the countryside: Italian neorealism had arrived in Taiwan. Taipei Story, a beautiful drama about stagnation and progress, is Yang's second film. His fellow director Hou Hsiao-hsien stars in the lead role.
Lung (Hou) thrives on past glories. Once a successful baseball player in the national Little League team, he now runs a textile store in Taipei. As far as he is concerned, nothing needs to change, but his girlfriend Chin (Tsai Chin), who just lost her job at a construction company, dreams of immigrating to the United States. Lung is not very keen on this idea. It becomes a source of contention between them.
Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project at Cineteca di Bologna/L’immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique and Hou Hsiao-hsien.
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