TSAI MING-LIANG III: GOODBYE MOVIES

This week’s Season 13 4x4 entry is GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2003), the third of four films curated by guest host Jack to represent the filmography of director Tsai Ming-liang. The original TPTGTU boys are reunited this ep with the return of host Thomas but divided in their appreciation for what is billed as Tsai Ming-liang’s comedy-drama. 

As promised in last episode, this third film by the Taiwanese slow cinema director takes on a lighter tone than his previously discussed movies, a tone that at times even borders on, or some might and do argue achieves, comedy. It’s a movie that allows the viewer to watch others watch a movie, to question the dimensions and positioning of moviegoers in this old Taiwanese movie theater showing its final film before closing, or to observe with mirth a Japanese tourist subtly cruise other males by switching seats and wandering the theater’s halls and bathrooms, or to observe a woman with a limp bring her coworker a bun to eat after cleaning out urinals and stalls. 

For those who do not speak Mandarin and are uninterested in reading subtitles, good news! There are only about a dozen lines of dialogue, mostly at the end between one of the elderly actors who starred in the titular 1967 martial arts movie Dragon Inn and some other movie patron lingering in the theater lobby after the movie’s final showing. 

Actor Lee Kang-sheng, a.k.a. Tsai Ming-liang’s heterosexual muse, returns as the movie’s film projectionist in a role with no lines but in one climatic (sarcasm) scene determines with the help of fortune teller machine whether he is a Cold Fish or a Casanova (for you Simpson’s fans). 

Is this film a comedic experience playing off cinematic expectations garnered from Western films? An endurance test? An homage to earlier cinema? A reminder to all filmmakers to not show a better film in their film? Or some awkward chimera of the above? Listen as the hosts take up positions awkwardly close to each other for long periods of time with their wee-wees out. 

Unfortunately, the pod’s best film critic ceded their seat at the table to Thomas back from his Western European tour. You are missed, Annabel. 

WARNING I: Do not approach this film expecting laugh tracks or comedic buttons. 

WARNING II: Do not operate heavy equipment while watching Tsai Ming-liang films. 

WARNING III: Do not allow the dissenting voice to write an episode’s show notes. 

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias