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A City Of Sadness
''A City of Sadness'' () is a 1989 Taiwanese historical drama directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. It tells the story of a family embroiled in the " White Terror" that was wrought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government (KMT) after their arrival from mainland China in the late 1940s, during which thousands of Taiwanese and recent emigres from the Mainland were rounded up, shot, and/or sent to prison. The film was the first to deal openly with the KMT's authoritarian misdeeds after its 1945 takeover of Taiwan, which had been restored to China following Japan's defeat in World War II, and the first to depict the February 28 Incident of 1947, in which thousands of people were massacred by the KMT. ''A City of Sadness'' was the first (of three) Taiwanese films to win the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and is often considered Hou's masterpiece. The film was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, but was n ...
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Hou Hsiao-hsien
Hou Hsiao-hsien (; born 8 April 1947) is a Mainland Chinese-born Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a leading figure in world cinema and in Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1989 for his film '' A City of Sadness'' (1989), and the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 for '' The Assassin'' (2015). Other highly regarded works of his include '' The Puppetmaster'' (1993) and '' Flowers of Shanghai'' (1998). Hou was voted "Director of the Decade" for the 1990s in a poll of American and international critics by ''The Village Voice'' and '' Film Comment''. In a 1998 New York Film Festival worldwide critics' poll, Hou was named "one of the three directors most crucial to the future of cinema." ''A City of Sadness'' ranked 117th in the British Film Institute's 2012 '' Sight & Sound'' critics' poll of the greatest films ever made. In 2017, Metacritic ranked Hsiao-hsien 16th on its li ...
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White Terror (Taiwan)
The White Terror () was the political repression of Taiwanese civilians under the Kuomintang (KMT)-ruled government. The period of White Terror is generally considered to have begun when martial law was declared in Taiwan on 19 May 1949, which was enabled by the 1948 Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion, and ended on 21 September 1992 with the repeal of Article 100 of the Criminal Code, allowing for the prosecution of "anti-state" activities. The Temporary Provisions were repealed a year earlier on 22 April 1991 and martial law was lifted on 15 July 1987. The period of White Terror generally does not include the 228 Incident of 1947, in which the KMT killed at least 18,000 Taiwanese civilians in response to a popular uprising, and also summarily executed many local political and intellectual elites. The two are frequently discussed in tandem as it was the catalyst that motivated the KMT to begin the White Terror. Martial law was declared and lifted twice duri ...
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Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the northern port city of Keelung. Most of the city rests on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed. The basin is bounded by the relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city's western border. The city of Taipei is home to an estimated population of 2,646,204 (2019), forming the core part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, which includes the nearby cities of New Taipei and Keelung with a population of 7,047,559, the 40th most-populous urban area in the world—roughly one-third of Taiwanese citizens live in the metro district. The name "Taipei" can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or just the city itself. Taipei has been the seat of the ROC central govern ...
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Good Men, Good Women
''Good Men, Good Women'' () is a 1995 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, starring Annie Yi, Lim Giong, and Jack Kao. It is the last installment in the trilogy that began with ''A City of Sadness'' (1989) and continued with '' The Puppetmaster'' (1993). Like its predecessors, it deals with the complicated issues of Taiwanese history and national identity. Plot The film depicts the real-life story of Chiang Bi-yu (Annie Yi). In the 1940s, she and her newlywed husband, Chung Hao-tung ( Lim Giong), head to mainland China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. During the war, she is forced to give her baby up for adoption. After the war they return to Taiwan, as Chung is to distribute a communist paper called ''The Enlightenment''. However, as the Korean War deepens, Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government intensifies the White Terror and Chung is executed. The film consists of three intermingling storylines and scattered throughout the film are interludes of an actress ...
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The Puppetmaster (film)
''The Puppetmaster'' is a 1993 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. Based on the memoirs of Li Tian-lu, Taiwan's most celebrated puppeteer, this story covers the years from Li's birth in 1909 to the end of Japan's fifty-year occupation of Taiwan in 1945. Many consider ''The Puppetmaster'' a masterpiece of world cinema. In the British Film Institute's 2012 ''Sight & Sound'' poll, seven critics and three directors named it one of the greatest films ever made. Plot The film tells the story of Li Tian-lu (1910-1998), who becomes a master puppeteer but is faced with demands to turn his skills to propaganda during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan in World War II. Scenes from his childhood and early adulthood are intercut with puppet performances and newly-filmed interviews of Li recounting his life as he's swept up in Taiwan's tumultuous history. The film is the second in Hou's trilogy of historical films about Taiwan in the 20th century. ''A City of Sadness'' (1989) covered ...
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62nd Academy Awards
The 62nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1989 and took place on March 26, 1990, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gil Cates and directed by Jeff Margolis. Actor Billy Crystal hosted the show for the first time. Three weeks earlier in a ceremony held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on March 3, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by hosts Richard Dysart and Diane Ladd. ''Driving Miss Daisy'' won four awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included '' Glory'' with three awards, '' Born on the Fourth of July'', '' The Little Mermaid'', and '' My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown'' with two, and ...
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Academy Award For Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.80th Academy Awards – Special Rules for the Best Foreign Language Film Award
. . Retrieved November 2, 2007.
When the first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, to honor fil ...
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Golden Lion
The Golden Lion ( it, Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1970, a second Golden Lion was introduced; this is an honorary award for people who have made an important contribution to cinema. The prize was introduced in 1949 as the Golden Lion of Saint Mark (which was one of the best known symbols of the ancient Republic of Venice). In 1954, the prize was permanently named Golden Lion. Previously, the equivalent prize was the ''Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia'' (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. Before that, from 1934 until 1942, the highest awards were the '' Coppa Mussolini'' (Mussolini Cup) for Best Italian Film and Best Foreign Film. History The prize was first awarded in 1949. Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazi ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massa ...
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Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ...
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Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The territories controlled by the ROC consist of 168 islands, with a combined area of . The main island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', has an area of , with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital, Taipei, forms along with New Taipei City and Keelung the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities include Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries in the world. Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the isla ...
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