cinephilereview This is definitely one of my all-time favorite movies. Before watching A City of Sadness, I subconsciously had this notion that somehow there were certain ways (or methods) feature narrative films should be made. Oh…how wrong I was. Experiencing this movie was like… the first time I saw Asian art, no more like the first time I tasted Chinese food as a kid. It was more than different. It was delightful! This film totally enlightened me! This poetic masterpiece changed the way I view cinema. This film which deals with modernity of Taiwan, feels more like a Confucian ritual, an ancestral rite of some sort. And at the same time like many of Hou Hsiao-hsien's other films, this movie deals with the theme of 'growth'. Hou seems to tell us over and over again that growth is learning to say goodbye to the things we love. One beautiful movie. I strongly recommend it to the cinephiles who haven't yet tasted this great cinematic treat.

darii73 Simply one of the best films ever made and certainly the best to have come out of China, Taiwan or Hong Kong. Forget about traumatic Taiwanese history, forget about other "epic" films from mainland China, or Taiwan, or Hong Kong. This one is one of the most profound statements about human condition and the relentless power of history. You can physically feel the winds of history blowing through a small hospital in the mountains, or a house of the person who will succumb to the inevitable, or a railway car caught in the middle of a massacre. Hou Hsiao-Hsien doesn't reconstruct history, he shows you human beings caught unawares and unable to cope with a totally unexpected avalanche of events destined to change their lives. Acting is superb, the mute character played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai (who, quite prosaically, couldn't speak Hokkien and had to be made mute) will haunt you for a very long time. One of the most underrated films from one of the most underrated directors. Spend two and a half hours of your life watching this, it's worth it. 10 out of 10.

jeyurita As my age, several section in this film makes me feel funny, such as the way they behavior, the words they said. It is too unbelievable for me to drive me away to feel the sadness. Just like listen to a story.However, it did happen. Several events I have heard from my grandmother; the setting is also like my mother's house in south country; the location, Chiu-Fen, I visited several months ago is still similar with the scene in the film. All I know about this period are from history books. Time would wipe people's memory. In case people would forget the sadness in our history, movie provides us to retract some part of that moment in our past time to allow us to learn what had happened around us. I have to say this movie is worth every people with any age in Taiwan or from Taiwan to see once in your life.

cd1793 Needless to comment on Hou's excellent artistic directing, the story itself tightly revolves around an average Taiwanese family's life during the years 1945-1949 when Japanese occupation ended and KuoMinTang from mainland took over. There are conflict on personal/family level between native Taiwanese (BenShengRen) and mainland newcomers(WaiShengRen), and massive political prosecution and massacre of native intellectuals by KuoMinTang. Hou painted an inspiring (rather than sad) picture of the native intellectuals giving their lives to earn their fellow Taiwanese dignity which was ironically more lacking during the KuoMinTang ruling than Japanese ruling.