''Goodbye, Dragon Inn'' () is a 2003

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...

slow cinema Slow cinema is a genre of art cinema characterised by a style that is minimalist, observational, and with little or no narrative, and which typically emphasizes long takes.Steven RoseTwo Years At Sea: little happens, nothing is explained ''The Gua ...

film written and directed by

Tsai Ming-liang Tsai Ming-liang (; born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker. Tsai has written and directed 11 feature films, many short films, and television films. He is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese ...

about a movie theater about to close down and its final screening of the 1967

wuxia ( ), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although is traditionally a form of historical fiction, its popularity has caused it to be adapted ...

film ''

Dragon Inn ''Dragon Inn'' (, also known as ''Dragon Gate Inn'') is a 1967 Taiwanese ''wuxia'' film written and directed by King Hu. The film was remade in 1992, as ''New Dragon Gate Inn'', and again in 2011 as '' The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate''. Plot Tsao ...

''.

Plot

During the last 90 minutes of a screening of ''

'' at an old Taipei cinema about to close down, the hobbled ticket woman tries to find the projectionist to give him a steamed bun. A Japanese tourist seeks a homosexual encounter;

Chen Chao-jung Chen Chao-jung, also known as Aaron Chen, is a Taiwanese actor and businessman. He is known for starring in several of Tsai Ming-liang's films, including '' Rebels of the Neon God'' and '' Vive L'Amour''. He is also considered a household na ...

brushes off his advance and tells him the place is haunted. Jun Shi, an actor in ''Dragon Inn'', watches the film with tears in his eyes. Outside, he meets

Miao Tien Miao Tien (, 6 December 1925 – 19 February 2005) was a Chinese film actor mostly active in Hong Kong and Taiwan.Lee, Daw-ming (2012). Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema'. Scarecrow Press. pp. 281–282. Biography Miao graduated at the Teach ...

, who also acted in the film and attended the screening with his grandson.

Cast

Lee Kang-sheng Lee Kang-sheng () (born 21 October 1968) is a Taiwanese actor, film director and screenwriter. He has appeared in all of Tsai Ming-liang's feature films. Lee's directorial efforts include ''The Missing'' in 2003 and '' Help Me Eros'' in 2007. ...

as the projectionist *

Chen Shiang-chyi Chen Shiang-chyi (; born 27 November 1969) is a Taiwanese actress. She has appeared in most of Tsai Ming-liang's feature films. Career When she was studying at the Taipei National University of the Arts, Chen was spotted by Edward Yang when he ...

as the ticket woman *Mitamura Kiyonobu as the Japanese tourist *Jun Shih as himself *

as himself *

Yang Kuei-mei Yang Kuei-mei (; born 6 September 1959) is a Taiwanese actress and television host. She has had starring roles in ''Eat Drink Man Woman'', '' Vive L'Amour'', and '' The Hole''. Yang has received several awards and a lot of nominations for her ...

as the peanut-eating woman

Production

In his prior film, ''

What Time is it There? ''What Time Is It There?'' is a 2001 Taiwanese film directed by Tsai Ming-liang. It stars Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi, and Lu Yi-ching. Plot Hsiao-kang is a street vendor in Taipei who sells watches out of a briefcase. His father dies. Soo ...

'', Tsai set a scene in the old Fu-Ho theater at the edge of Taipei. Reminded of the super-cinemas and the poetic

King Hu Hu Jinquan (29 April 1932 – 14 January 1997), better known as King Hu, was a Chinese film director and actor based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He is best known for directing various ''wuxia'' films in the 1960s and 1970s, which brought Cinema of ...

films of his youth, he shot a scene in the theater and premiered the film there. After the premiere, Tsai approached the owner to shoot an entire film there, fearing the soon-to-close theater would be lost forever. What was envisioned as a long short soon turned into a feature due to the long takes.

Release

A 4K restoration was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Second Run on November 23, 2020, and digitally by

Metrograph The Metrograph is an independent two-screen movie theater at 7 Ludlow Street in the Dimes Square neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It opened in 2016 with two theatres, a bookstore, a "curated" concession stand, and a restaurant. ...

on December 18, 2020.

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Goodbye, Dragon Inn'' has an approval rating of 80% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Deliberately paced yet absorbing, ''Goodbye, Dragon Inn'' offers an affectionate—and refreshingly unique—look at a fading theater that should strike a chord with cineastes." A. O. Scott of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' praised the film, writing, "''Goodbye, Dragon Inn'' has a quiet, cumulative magic, whose source is hard to identify. Its simple, meticulously composed frames are full of mystery and feeling; it's an action movie that stands perfectly still."

J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at ''The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...

'' also liked the film: "And because Tsai is the director, ''Goodbye, Dragon Inn'' is also a movie of elegant understatement and considerable formal intelligence." Tsai considers it one of his best films and chose it as one of his entries of the 10 greatest films of all time in the 2012 Sight & Sound Directors' Poll. Directors

Monte Hellman Monte Hellman (; born Monte Jay Himmelbaum; July 12, 1929 – April 20, 2021) was an American film director, producer, writer, and editor. Hellman began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC TV, and made his directorial debut with the ho ...

and

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Apichatpong Weerasethakul ( th, อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล; ; ) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system ...

also voted for it in that poll. On November 6, 2020, Weerasethakul tweeted, "THE best film of the last 125 years: Goodbye, Dragon Inn." The film won several awards, including the FIPRESCI Prize at the

60th Venice International Film Festival The 60th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 27 August to 6 September 2003. The festival opened with Woody Allen's Out of Competition film '' Anything Else''. Juries The following people comprised the 2003 jury for the featu ...

and the Best Feature Gold Plaque at the

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

.IMDb,

References

External links

* * {{Tsai Ming-liang 2003 films 2003 comedy-drama films Films directed by Tsai Ming-liang Films set in a movie theatre 2000s Mandarin-language films Films with screenplays by Tsai Ming-liang Taiwanese comedy-drama films Taiwanese LGBT-related films 2003 comedy films 2003 drama films