146 / BD 35 Goodbye, Dragon Inn

[Bikey]

A wonderful new piece on Tsai Ming-Liang's film and the magic of cinema by James Balmont at Little White Lies.

[Bikey]

"The visuals on display put the older SD DVD releases to shame...
the interview with Tsai is worth the price of admission alone. This Blu-ray is highly recommended."
Beaver

[Bikey]

Now back in stock at Amazon UK

[Aunt Peg]

Now back in stock at Amazon UK

Hopefully that means Zavvi will get it back in stock too soon and dispatch my copy.

[mteller]

This was a great disc to break in my new 65" TV. The colors really pop and the level of detail is fantastic. I still rank the film near the bottom of Tsai's features, but only because his others are so dear to me. This one doesn't get me as much on a gut level, but there is some really fantastic humor in it. Madam Butterfly is also better than I remembered it, wouldn't call it a favorite but it's an interesting thing to chew on. Good interview with Tsai.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Is there something going on with the production of this disc? It seems like it’s been available nowhere since release. Even my go-to for new import discs on eBay has yet to have this in stock. It’s quite unusual!

[criterionsnob]

Hopefully that means they've sold a lot of copies. I'd love to see more Tsai from them. I received my copy directly from Second Run shortly after release. I'm happy to support them directly, even if it costs a little bit more. They also sent me a post card for Vitalina Varela.

This is my early pick for UK Blu-ray of the year. It's like watching the film for the first time.

[Bikey]

There's plenty of stock, no manufacture issues.
It's also available at Amazon UK (at just £14.99 currently)

[Aunt Peg]

Zavvi dispatched mine the other day.

[Bikey]

"The film manages to balance humorous and melancholy tones perfectly with a slow, steady pace that becomes hypnotic... The film's global Blu-ray premiere [...] from Second Run looks pretty spectacular; the many dark scenes that were impenetrable on previous editions are crystal clear here and feature saturated, beautiful colours..." Mondo Digital

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

DiabolikDVD in the US just got this in for those in the states that can’t justify Amazon UK’s shipping rates. I happily ordered it and can’t wait to rewatch this.

[jbeall]

J. Hoberman on Goodbye, Dragon Inn

[Bikey]

GOODBYE, DRAGON INN Blu-ray currently now just £13.99 at Amazon UK

[Aunt Peg]

Got my copy today and just watched it. Beautiful restoration and the film holds up well which was hardly a surprise as all as Tsai's film do. Also, I haven't test the film but the back of the case states ABC.

[T!me]

I blindly bought the Blu-ray after I read of the high praise the movie got in here and elsewhere and my god, I really loved it. The way Tsai captures all those little idiosyncrasies of cinema and its audience really made me sad for not being able to watch it on the big screen myself.

This was my fourth contact or so with Taiwanese cinema in general and together with Hu's Dragon Inn, which I watched immediately prior to this and Yang's Terrorizers I watched a few days later really created an interest for more. If someone can recommend some movies in the vein of Goodbye, Dragon Inn to me, I'd highly appreciate it.

[knives]

Anything else by Tsai seems an obvious point of continuous although this is the furthest in a traditional narrative he’s gone in this mode.

Tsai works a bit in series so while not necessary watching the films in order does provoke a unique response.

[Maltic]

Regarding "all those little idiosyncrasies of cinema and its audience," Luc Moullet's Les sièges de l'Alcazar (1989) is the film, I would say. A very funny send-up of all the aspiring Cahiers critics out there.

[senseabove]

I'm slowly working my way through all of Tsai's features right now, and as for where to go next, I can only emphasize how much more of a magical effect his movies have seen in conjunction with each other, due to his repeated use of the same actors with explicit or ambiguously implicit connections to their past iterations in the world of his movies. So the first suggestion is definitely to loop back to Rebels of the Neon God and start forward from there. Even when the movies aren't narratively related and the actors aren't explicitly playing the same characters, it's impossible to not feel the prior films haunting the subsequent ones. As an example from Goodbye, Dragon Inn, the projectionist is played by Tsai's muse and lead in all of his prior features, and there's a beautiful, anxious anticipation to the movie when you've seen the prior films and can't help but fixate on when Lee Kang-sheng will appear.


Has anyone seen Lee Kang-sheng's pseudo-double bill that this began as a companion piece to? Is it thematically related in any way, or were they just pairing independent projects until Tsai's took on its own life?

[barbarella satyricon]

If someone can recommend some movies in the vein of Goodbye, Dragon Inn to me, I'd highly appreciate it.

If you haven’t seen The Hole, also by Tsai, then I’d suggest that one as a good (to my mind, excellent) feature to follow up with, if not for being so much in the same vein as Goodbye, Dragon Inn in any overlap of themes or storylines, then for a narrative that also deals in what feels like several actual and imagined realities shifting and shuffling in and out among themselves.

It’s also a musical of a kind, which foregrounds even more that sense of vibrant, garish, even phantasmagoric unreality embedded as random, isolated pockets within the dreary, dread-filled reality of an end-of-world disaster narrative (pandemic, yikes).

And to think of it now, I do see how it shares with Goodbye, Dragon Inn a feeling of disconnectedness from linear time, where the worlds of movies and musicals hold both the characters and we the viewers in a suspended space, almost like a lucid dream, where golden oldies songs, classic films, and crumbling architecture all feed into the stuff of the most potent kind of nostalgia transference.

It also rains a whole lot throughout the whole thing.

The Hole’s been recently put out on a DVD-only release (discussed here in the Cinema Guild thread), and though I haven’t yet picked up that disc, I wouldn’t let the no blu ray thing put you off. It may or may not work the same kind of magic that Goodbye, Dragon Inn did for you, but it’s my favorite Tsai off the top of my head on any given day, with Goodbye, Dragon Inn hovering somewhere near the top too.

[dda1996a]

The Hole is also my favorite Tsai and potentially one of my favorites ever - I would recommend all his other films, they are all amazing.
Other directors who are similar in some way -
Edward Yang is an obvious precursor (he is more Antonioni but his influence on Tsai is obvious), and also Hou Hsiao Hsien is an obvious Taiwanese cohort. I also liked very much Lee's film Help Me Eros and I so need to catch up on The Missing.
Other than them, I'd say most of the half comedic half tragic directors, starting from obviously Keaton and Tati but modernized in Elia Suleiman and Roy Anderson.
Other special directors who are somewhat similar are Apichatpong, Ceylan, Kaplanoglu.
And I always found Tsai to be the Yan to Kar Wai's Yang.

[mteller]

The Hole is also my favorite Tsai and potentially one of my favorites ever - I would recommend all his other films, they are all amazing.

I also liked very much Lee's film Help Me Eros and I so need to catch up on The Missing.

Same for me on all of the above. The Hole is an all-time top 5 for me, but I do think watching Tsai's films in order is a good way to go.

Help Me Eros is kind of Tsai-lite. A lot of the same tics/techniques, but not quite as extreme and with more of a focus on narrative.

[dda1996a]

Yes it's also not as good as Tsai but I liked it overall and it satisifes one's needs when you've rewatched all of Tsais film again

[T!me]

Thanks everyone for your recommendations. Looks like some hard times are coming for my savings

Edward Yang is an obvious precursor (he is more Antonioni but his influence on Tsai is obvious)

Being a great fan of Antonioni, I noticed what you said about Yang myself, so I am currently waiting for the perfect evening to watch A Brighter Summer Day.

and also Hou Hsiao Hsien is an obvious Taiwanese cohort

Where would you recommend me to start with him?

Other than them, I'd say most of the half comedic half tragic directors, starting from obviously Keaton and Tati but modernized in Elia Suleiman and Roy Anderson.

I've seen all Tatis and some Keatons and I can't say that I'm as big a fan as I'd like to be. They're fun, for sure, but except for maybe mon oncle I unfortunately don't really feel their movies.

Other special directors who are somewhat similar are Apichatpong, Ceylan, Kaplanoglu.
And I always found Tsai to be the Yan to Kar Wai's Yang.

Thanks again for your lengthy recommendations.

An afterthought I had after I discussed the movie with a friend not that long ago is that I do really admire the way the film's lack of noise merges your viewing experience with the one of the film's characters. I can only imagine how this takes effect in a real theater with real people around you making real noise and thereby creating the movie's "soundscape" in the first place.

[Matt]

I can only imagine how this takes effect in a real theater with real people around you making real noise and thereby creating the movie's "soundscape" in the first place.

I saw it in its original release in a theater on a rainy afternoon. It was quite an incredible, immersive experience.

[senseabove]

Nick Pinkerton has a monograph on this just out from an Australian press (and Matt Zoller Seitz has put a few signed copies up in his store—don't ask me why Seitz has a store?—if you're in the US and intl. shipping still gives you pause these days). Mine arrived this morning and I'm already about halfway through, and I'd say it's about as good as critical monographs with a personal angle get, so if you're a fan of either Tsai or Pinkerton, consider it highly recommended.