A bar-girl turned actress becomes more and more involved with the film role
she is rehearsing and the film journeys back and forth between the actress's
world and the world within the film. The role she plays is that of a real life
heroine of the anti-Japanese war who is later prosecuted for her left wing
activism in Taiwan.
I am very fond of those scenes in Good Men Good Women where Liang
Jing's diary is stolen, and the other party faxes page after page of her diary
back to her. As a result, she is forced to review the past. Memory suddenly
becomes all too real, particularly when it is revealed by modern technology. The
film within a film is the medium. Black and white, colour, monochromatic film,
take turns to engage with each other. They bear witness to Hou Hsiao-hsien
falling victim to temptation and trying his hand once again in making an elegy
about the city after his failed attempt with Daughter of the Nile . By
resorting to the device of a film within a film, he can mingle in a drama of the
countryside which is, all along, his strong point. Thereafter, jumping from the
age of the written word to the age of the fax machine, he integrates a dialectic
between alienation and liberation. - Long Tin
Hou Hsiao-hsien's Daughter of the Nile is no longer inhabiting the fantasy
world of the comics, she has entered the world of the Puppetmaster, mourning the
tragedy of the City of Sadness, and lamenting the emptiness of our present
glistening world. In looking back at the past with the eyes of the present,
history has taken a big roundabout. The essence of humanity hasn't changed. Each
man must struggle alone to walk on the right path of life. This is true of the
person who sacrifices his life for ideals, and is also true of the new
generation drifting along on a sea of lust and greed, unable to land on shore.
Only the good men and the good women can face solitude and live in dignity. -
Wong Ain-ling
Although the visual style of Good Men Good Women represents something
of a departure for Hou Hsiao-hsien (more medium to close shots and camera
movements), the gloom, the depression and the misery are new in Hou's works.
Perhaps because of this, many people are put off by this picture. However, I am
of the opinion that Good Men Good Women is more successful than The
Puppetmaster . The extensiveness of The Puppetmaster is such that in
some scenes, one has to practically cover the eyes to see clearly. This isn't to
say that Hou's direction is a problem only that the production can't accommodate
the actors. The complexity of Good Men Good Women (not only in terms of
its structure but also the relationships of the characters and their
psychological states) is a breakthrough for Hou. - Shu Kei
The pain of two generations is visited upon a woman. A wound is transformed
into a mark that is constantly revolving around the body. Hou Hsiao-hsien
directs from his heart. He is no longer constrained by the style of traditional
drama. He exposes himself by pointing straight to the heart as an echo of the
times. This is a perfect conclusion to his 'City of Sadness Trilogy'.
Annie Shizuka Inoh is positively the biggest discovery of recent times. Every
move of her eyelashes is marked by emotion. She makes us believe her love for Ah
Wei and she brings to life two generations of women. We are moved by the death
of the men, the melancholy of the last generation, and the modern generation's
indignation. We feel the pain of the two stories, the two ages. -
Keeto
From Hong Kong Film Critics
Society
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