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跑道終點 [Pao dao zhong dian / The End of the Track] (Tun-Fei Mou, 1970)
Jun
2
Dennis Haysbert
Hsiao-Tung and Yung-shen at the track. DP: Chung-Hsin Chen.
A [favourite]* fictional athlete for Dennis Haysbert's birthday (1954).
Close friends Hsiao-Tung and Yung-shen spend their time together, wandering about, eating dumplings, and training for athletics. Until one of them pushes too hard, leaving the other alone in his grief.
* this month's Bales' Challenge is marred with “favourites”, something I don't believe in. Instead, I stick to great cinema and will squeeze in a few LGBT-themed films for Pride Month.
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愛情萬歲 [Ai qing wan sui / Vive L'Amour] (Tsai Ming-liang, 1994)
Mar
24
Flatmates Day
In a black-tiled bathroom, a black dress and black shoes are fitted. DPs: Pen-Jung Liao & Ming-Kuo Lin.
May Lin is a real estate agent who meets up with a man in the bare, too sterile flat she brokers. Another man who took the key of the same dwellings for his own cause, decides to settle in.
Over time, the apartment serves not only as the space where events take place, but locks and guides the flatmates through their compulsions.
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洞 [Dóng / The Hole] (Tsai Ming-liang, 1998)
Mar
22
National Sing It Out Day
The man upstairs and the woman upstairs, both dressed in that perfectly cool, 1960s Chinese style, break out in song in their crumbling apartment block The woman's singing voice is legendary Grace Chang's. DP: Pen-Jung Liao.
In a #plague-ridden Taiwan, it rains relentlessly. The #rain and a #virus forces people to retreat. In Hsiao Kang's crumbling building, a plumber inadvertently punches a hole from his floor to the unnamed woman's below. While she, another victim of the #disease, holes up in her apartment they struck up a strange detached relationship.
Between the endless downpour and frantic #food hoarding, in her heart a #musical sings.
