Bei qing cheng shi (1989)

Director:

Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writers:

T'ien-wen Chu (writer)
Nien-Jen Wu (writer)

Release Date:

2 February 1990 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Oppression | 1940s | Political Uprising | Marriage | Taiwan

Awards:

4 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Sung Young Chen
Wou Yi Fang	...	Hinoiei
Nakamura Ikuyo	...	Shizuko
Jack Kao	...	Wen Leung
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Tianlu Li
Ikuyo Nakamura	...	Shisuqo
Chen-Nan Tsai
Shufen Xin

Also Known As:

A City of Sadness (International: English title)
Bei cing cheng shih (Taiwan)

Runtime:

157 min

Country:

Hong Kong | Taiwan

Language:

Taiwanese | Mandarin | Japanese | Cantonese | Shanghainese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | UK:15 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Hokkien, China

Company:

3-H Films

Trivia:

This was the first Taiwanese film to be shot in direct sound. Director Hsiao-hsien Hou wanted to capture the varied dialects and accents of his actors, reflecting the film's concern for the complex, heterogeneous origins of modern Taiwan.

One of the world's most important films

Artistically, its greatness is not in dispute, but it is hard to overstate the importance of this film in political and social terms for Taiwan. The subject of the film, the February 28 Incident (the massacre of 20000 or more Taiwanese by Chinese Nationalist troops in 1947) had been completely been banned from public discussion by the now-defunct military government of Taiwan up until 1988 - only a year and a half before the film was released. To intervene so powerfully in a period of political and social change as Taiwan's democratic revolution in the late 1980s, makes the film as dramatic a re-configuring of a country's cultural landscape as any film has ever achieved.