Hsiao-hsien Hou’s historical drama is the first of three Taiwanese films to win the Golden Lion in Venice, and today “A City o Sadness” is considered one of the highlights not only of Hou’s work, but also of Taiwanese cinema. During the eighties and nineties, he made all the most important films, and in “City of Sorrow” we follow the fate of the Lin family in a coastal town near Taipei from 1945 to 1949. Here we follow how the period that was recorded in Taiwanese history as the “White Terror” came to be, and it lasted until the end of the eighties, when Taiwan was finally abolished the quick court and the dictatorship was abolished.
The story of this epic historical drama begins on the day Japan capitulated and Taiwan was freed from it after more than half a century of colonial rule. The capitulation of Japan was greeted with enthusiasm by everyone, and while the civil war between Mao’s communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Kuomintang continues on the continent, that is, in China, Taiwan has already declared independence. During the Japanese occupation, Taiwan had very modest ties with the mainland, which later led to serious problems. After the communists won the civil war, Taiwan became a refuge for the defeated nationalist army, but also for numerous criminals and similar scoundrels.
In the first years of the revolution, tensions began to grow between the domiciled Taiwanese population and the “continentals” who very quickly decided to seize power on the island. When they succeeded in this, the persecution of the resident population began, and what that period of dangerous living looked like, Hou brilliantly told through the fate of the Lin family. Wen-heung (Chen Sung-Young) is the eldest of four brothers and the owner of the “Little Shanghai” inn, who had a son on the same night when the Japanese emperor Hirohito declared capitulation. Another brother disappeared in the Philippines during the war, while the third brother, Lin Wen-leung, was recruited by the Japanese during the war and sent as a translator to Shanghai. After the defeat of Japan, the Kuomintang arrested him and accused him of treason, which led to his mental breakdown, after which he began smuggling for Shanghai gangsters.
The youngest brother Wen-ching (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is a doctor and photographer who leans towards left-wing ideas, and has been deaf since childhood. And on the example of the brothers, we follow what those turbulent years looked like in Taiwan and the situation that completely escalated after the Kuomintang troops massacred the protesters in early 1947. And of course it will be one of those tragic and sad stories, and Hou, along with his contemporary Edward Yang, was the initiator of the film movement called the Taiwanese New Wave and when realistic films aimed not only for local but also international audiences began to be shot there .
“A City of Sadness” was also the first Taiwanese film to deal with the topic of the February 1947 massacre, and it caused considerable controversy in Taiwan, although it was well received by the audience. He shot Hou, his most famous in a realistic style, and although the story develops there slowly and patiently, the author builds not only the characters, but also brings the historical circumstances closer to the viewer, “City of Sadness” is a great and fully rounded film. Through the story of the Lin brothers and their fate, Hou told in a fascinating way the story of the first years of Taiwan’s independence and what the power relations looked like at the beginning of a dark episode in Taiwan’s history, during which about 140 thousand Taiwanese ended up in prison, and between three and four thousand executed.