Jailbreak I am compelled to write a review of this movie that doesn't berate it, since most people seem to expect an action-packed and commercially viable film, not the artful and well done piece that it is. Liang's point is quite clear, and whether "nothing happens" or not is left up to the viewer's interpretation I guess. It's a short feature though, and anyone who is seriously interested in film should check this out. "Nobody goes to the movies anymore." With this line, we are told exactly what Liang is saying to us. The film is an ode to going to the movies. If you don't like going to the movies, then you shouldn't watch this film. If you do, then it should fill you up with the fuel that you need to get you through this piece.

Michael Field Nothing happens in this movie. Well, almost nothing. You get to watch three guys urinate for a few minutes. That's about as exciting as it gets. That's not all though; no. You get to watch a cripple walk slowly for about a fifth of the film. She trudges up stairs and through hallways tragically and with singular non-purposefulness. You get to watch people watching people watch movies. The movies they watch are better than watching them watch the movies. Skip watching this film and watch the movies that the people in the film are watching instead. Those at least look somewhat entertaining. I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to shoot themselves in the head.

sfdavide I hope someone can tell me why I was so fascinated by this film. Good Bye Dragon Inn was a film about a Japanese tourist getting out a torrential rainstorm and going into a movie theater on its last night of business. There are only 5 or 6 lines of dialogue among the characters. The only other dialogue comes from the film playing on the screen. There is really no action to speak of. There are long shots of patrons watching the film and each other, eating peanuts, using the urinal and smoking but I was fascinated by it. There were some funny moments like when a customer comes in and sits next to the tourist even though there are hundreds of empty seats. The most interesting character is a worker who is physically handicapped. She goes around and makes sure things are in working order, like flushing every toilet in the theater. At the end when she closes up for the night you can see the sadness in her face that she may never do this again. This is also a testament to the old one screen movie houses which have pretty much disappeared for the multi plexes. Some of you may think I am crazy but I was mesmerized by this film.

liehtzu Tsai Ming-liang's "Goodbye Dragon Inn" is a spectacularly dull movie, a limp ode to the bygone days of cinema-going. A film smitten with its own stasis, "Goodbye" culminates in a shot held for an obscene amount of time of an empty movie theater. Tsai's known for holding his shots way past the point most directors yell cut, and the result can be strikingly effective in the right context (the brilliant final shot of "Vive L'Amour") but "Goodbye" is almost an art film parody in its studied minimalism. The money shot in particular is a groan-inducer that makes you long for a fast-forward button. "Goodbye Dragon Inn" sounds like it ought to appeal: a homage to the glory days of cinema by a great director, but Tsai seems to be resting on the assumption that anything he cranks out these days is destined for acclaim (which is true). However, ever since "The Hole" Tsai's inspiration appears to be running out; what in the earlier films seems innovative comes off as mannered in the later ones. "What Time is it There?" is a good flick but hardly feels like anything new from the filmmaker, "The Skywalk is Gone" is a short-film punchline for "What Time?," and "Goodbye" is just grinding. Tsai's probably incapable of making a thoroughly awful movie and there are spots of greatness in "Goodbye Dragon Inn," but hardly enough to justify a feature-length film. You can almost feel the director yawning behind the camera as he's filming, telling his actress to just continue sitting for an interminable amount of time so he can pad it just a little more (though the movie is only 80 minutes long it feels much, much longer). The director's always threatened to deadend his limited stylistic resources and "Goodbye Dragon Inn" is the wall he's always threatened to hit. I like Tsai and think he has some worthwhile things to say, but he's said the same things over and over again and the point's been made. People these days have trouble connecting, the values of the old days have become buried under the industrial rubble of progress, yes yes. Tsai fixates on the same themes in the same way he fixates on an empty theater or a woman hobbling slowly across the screen. Since there isn't too terribly much variety thematically or stylistically in the his films, familiarity with his past work leads to a feeling of having repeatedly tread the same path. It takes a true master to be able to be as stubbornly dwell on the same ideas in the same manner over the course of a career and pull it off, and Tsai is hardly a Bresson or Ozu. Flashes of brilliance and invention are certainly to be found in Tsai's movies, but "Goodbye" just uses minimalism to mask its lack of substance. Slow movies don't have to be tedious and unrewarding, as a few Tsai Ming-liang films have demonstrated, but often the tendency among art film devotees is to equivocate slow and good. "Goodbye Dragon Inn" isn't very good. The ideas are slight, the homage curiously lacks feeling, and the whole thing just drags along way past the point of interest like Tsai's lead actress down the corridor.