The Boys from Fengkuei (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1983): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.45pm
This film, which also screens on April 5th and 30th, is part of the Taiwan New Cinema season at BFI Southbank. Full details here. Tonight's presentation is introduced by director Chen Kun-hou.
Time Out review:
Hou Hsiao-hsien's first indie production was also a creative breakthrough, the film
in which he turned away from commercial formulas and began experimenting
with long takes, wide-angle shots and melodrama-free plotlines. Three
young men from Fengkuei, a backwater village in the Penghu Islands,
decamp to Kaohsiung, Taiwan's southern port, for what they think will be
a life of laddish fun; like Fellini's Vitelloni, they are pushed
towards maturity by encounters with crime, death, work and women. Hou
soon went far beyond these rather obvious social and psychological
observations, but the film retains a real freshness and charm; it
launched several acting careers. The classical music track doesn't work
in this context, but it's a small improvement on the Taiwanese version
(three minutes longer, thanks to a now-cut theme song), which had a
dreadul pop soundtrack.
Tony Rayns
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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