Millennium Mambo 千禧曼波 (Qianxi manbo) [2001] • Taiwan

I can only imagine that at some point Hsiao-Hsien Hou found himself with a mad crush on Shu Qi and decided to make a film for her, or of her ... or to her ... or something. People can quibble all day long on whether Hou's anti-cinema springs from genius or pretention, but a film like this ought to be able to escape such discussion because it's really nothing more than a love poem to, or of, or for ... or something ... a beautiful actress. This is a Shu Qi vehicle from top to bottom and the film rests on her shoulders, in her hair, on her lips, in her eyes, on her hips, and everywhere else about her über-photogenic self. Marry that to the fact that one of the best cinematographers in the business, Mark "Ping Bing" Lee is shooting this film and you're going to end up with gorgeous. Add a contemporary throbbing techno soundtrack and you get a hypnotic, slow, empty, and depressing film that's pretty close to cool.

I happen to think Shu Qi is a fine and very intelligent actress. I also like slow, empty, and depressing arthouse films if the characters appeal to me so everything works out as far as I'm concerned. If you don't like Shu Qi you probably won't like this film. There's no real plot to speak of and only a thin story about a woman who likes to hang out in nightclubs, smokes a LOT, does drugs and has crummy sex with her loser boyfriend, meets a gangster, loses a gangster ... fade to black. Awesome.

★★★★

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Starring: Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Chun-hao Tuan, Yi-Hsuan Chen, Jun Takeuchi
IMDb
Beyond Hollywood