Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)

Essential Viewing

Taiwan

Feature Film

Original Title: 不散

Director: Tsai Ming-liang

Writer: Tsai Ming-liang

Cinematographer: Liao Ben-Bong

Cast: Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi, Mitamura Kiyonobu, Miao Tien, Shih Chun, Chen Chao-jung, Yang Kuei-Mei, Lee Yi-Cheng

On what could well be its final night, a woman with a clubfoot keeps an eye on a grand old but decidedly dilapidated cinema and its patrons, most of whom are there merely to cottage rather than to watch the film – Hu’s Dragon Inn (1967) – in Tsai’s minimalist masterpiece, a plotless, beautifully photographed, and pathos laden lamentation for the long, slow death of cinema. Iain.Stott