Sparrow is the latest movie by acclaimed Hong Kong director Johnnie To. In many ways, I feel he is the heir to the throne John Woo has built up over the years: their oeuvre have been quintessential to the definition of modern day Hong Kong cinema, stylish and macho. From Hard Boiled and the Killer now to PTU and Triad.

Sparrow is a departure from his signature work. It is much more lighthearted, slow paced (in a very good way) than most of his movies. Kelly Lin plays a super sensual and mysterious woman that threads all the characters in the movie (the usual suspects in Johnnie To movies: Simon Yam, Lam Ka Tong..). But while it is perhaps conventional to describe a movie in terms of its plot and the actors that carry this plot, it is more fitting to assign Hong Kong, the city, as the subject of the movie and the main fascination the director falls in love with. Mostly shot in areas of Hong Kong totally familiar to me and very dear and near to my heart, the movie allows the characters to roam around Hong Kong’s most sensual places; places of beauty, of contrast, of a nostalgic past versus a hypermodern capitalistic present, of the dried seafood sold in Wing Lok Street, to the stairs in Sheung Wan and Central and all the little shops on and around it, to the morning breakfasts and get-togethers with your buddies in the cha chaan teng in Wanchai. The willow trees hanging over Hollywood Road that have been there since my childhood, and probably the childhood of my parents. The Sang Kee congee shop where I had so many meals that warmed my heart.

Did I tell you that the soundtrack is awesome too? Made by Xavier Jamaux and Fred Avril, it conjures up the sense of fantasy, of a place where little encounters of magical moments are sprinkled around wherever you go, never knowing when they will come to you. The breeze of a late-night stroll when you walk along a quiet road during a lazy and warm fall evening.

I enjoy being in Boston a lot – and one of the reasons is the presence and close vicinity of the Harvard Film Archive. It’s a treasure trove for rare, obscure, foreign, or otherwise hard-to-find movies.

Last weekend and this weekend, they are showing a retrospective of Edward Yang and Wu Nien-jen, two of the pioneers of the Taiwanese New Wave. I have long had a huge admiration for Taiwanese cinema and Edward Yang is no exception. His movies, besides maybe Yi Yi, however, have always been incredibly hard to find. I always thought it was the definition of irony that his most widely acclaimed movie, Yi Yi, who is so quintessential Taiwanese, was not distributed in Taiwan itself. Maybe it has by now, but when I was in Taiwan from 2001-2002, the movie won awards everywhere but my classmates at the National Taiwan University could only see this movie by downloading it.

Three nights ago, I saw Taipei Story, which is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Ozu’s Tokyo Story, although the Chinese title (qingmei zhuma) translates more accurately as a proverb that refers to the kind of friend you have that you have known since childhood. In that sense, it’s a strongly nostalgic word that captures the appreciation for a shared history between you and your friend – all the things you have gone through together, the good times, the bad times, the way you dealt with adversities together, the successes you enjoyed together. This mixed sense of nostalgia and appreciation is explicated layer for layer for layer in this wonderful movie by Yang, who casted another Taiwanese New Wave director Hou Hsiao-hsien as his main protagonist. HHH plays a former Little League baseball star who is now wondering what happened to a world where his role was so clearly defined but now has changed so much, leaving him behind. It’s a critical look at the success of Taiwanese economic development – underscoring the social costs that often come with economic growth spurts (this, however, is not a necessary outcome. For a brilliant argument on why economic growth has to take into account and include social and political growth as well, see Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom).

Last night I saw another wonderful movie by Edward Yang, That Day on the Beach. I won’t summarize the story here, but it’s a wonderful story that plays with narrative structure and weaves a web of relationships between fascinating characters that portray the richness of human life in all its glory (and not so glory).

In short, I’m extremely grateful to be in a place and position where I have been able to see these movies that have been almost impossible to find these days. Edward Yang and Wu Nien-jen also just skyrocketed to my list of directors I have a deep admiration for – not that it wasn’t there, but being able to see their earlier works in full glory, something I haven’t been able to do before, confirms and underscores my admiration for them as persons who have a deep passion for what they do, have a admirable understanding of the oh-so important nuances of human life, care about the world around them and seek to share this through their work.

We decide to go to the cafe I just mentioned to her. We stroll along the street, turn into another alley and find ourselves staring in front of the large window of the cafe. I open the door for her and follow her in.

We sit down. The cafe has high ceilings, with a little staircase that goes up to a smaller floor, that serves as a kind of loft. Looking at the menu, she orders a Blue Mountain coffee, I opt for the stronger and coarser Mandheling. Having ordered, a bit unsure, we look around, half-casually. She looks gorgeous.

“Have you been here before?” I ask her. She looks at me with her big black eyes, just briefly, and lightly shakes her head.

“I am glad we are here. Even though you will be leaving soon.” She says, while looking at me.

Unsure how to respond, I look down and glance her briefly in the eye. A faint smile.

And then all of a sudden, I feel like I am a million years away, as if the present turned into a memory, and I find myself missing her, reminiscing this very moment. You wonder if that is how you are going to feel, once you really have left.

“I’m glad I met you too. The moment is kind of unfortunate, what with one month before I leave. But at the same time, I am grateful that we did meet.”

She kept looking at me, during the whole time I said those three sentences.

The coffee arrives, and a whirl of smoke emanates from the two cups of black liquid.

Adding one sugar, we stir and take a sip. A rush of warmth courses through my body.

“The coffee here is great!” She beams. I smile.

—

It’s one of those rare encounters that you will come across once every so many times in your life. They are brief, but leave a strong impression. In our darkest nights, we suddenly remember and cherish them dearly, at the same time wondering where she is, how come you had almost forgotten about her, and what if .. ? The brevity of the moment is similar to the sudden dead of a person in her youth: forever young and beautiful, etched in our memories, with yet so many unwritten tales now only left to our imagination.

Three Times – Movie Review – Stylus Magazine

There isn’t a better filmmaker than Hou Hsiao-hsien working anywhere in the world right now.

It is hard to argue with the above, and perhaps I would rate a few others in his class, like Ang Lee, Wong Kar Wai, or even Ann Hui, but Hou Hsiao Hsien (affectionately HHH) is definitely one of the most outstanding, if not the best, filmmaker these days.

My favorite movie of his is still Dust in the Wind but Three Times, his latest one, is high up there. Seen during the New York Film Festival in an amazing setting (thanks James for the tickets) – the movie breathed emotion, feelings, with an intensity – as if, a first glance of the world after years of being in coma. Struck with silence, beauty.

The first part bleeds nostalgia. Driven by a pair of songs like Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and, in particular a favorite of mine, Rain and Tears, one relives a past where – because nothing much happened – you live so much more aware and feelings are so much more intense. Resonating, still, and desperately grasping onto it. A time of friendship, camaraderie, growing up, deciding life. Critical juncture – choices that will set the structure of your future – but back then, it was just your gut guiding you. The lightness of being.

Two times; the second part. Set in the time before the Japanese take-over, shot in black and white, silence. Not until then do you realize the mediated world we live in, cinematic experience overthrown – equilibrium of senses off guard. It ironically feels more unmediated, by mediating it in a silent movie. The conjuring of images, sounds in your head – dialogues, intensity of speech, voice. Very, very, impressive, HHH. Show us why we care, why we should care, and show it good.

Catch it in the cinema if you get the chance.