A City of Sadness (1989) on Netflix
In Keelung, the Lin family runs a nightclub as Japan surrenders. Wen-ching, its deaf fourth son, meets the nurse Hinomi, while his brother Wen-liang is drawn into a smuggling operation.
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- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.7/107,146 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Japan's surrender ends five decades of colonial rule in Taiwan, and in the coastal town of Keelung the Lin family opens Little Shanghai, a nightclub and gambling house run by the eldest son, Wen-hsiung. That same day the young nurse Hinomi takes a post at Kinguichu Miners' Hospital; her brother Hinoe asks his friend Wen-ching, the deaf fourth son of the Lins, to meet her, and the two write notes to each other. Wen-liang, the third brother, comes home from service in the Japanese army, and once he recovers the gangster Red Monkey draws him into a smuggling operation that uses Wen-hsiung's ships. Wen-hsiung learns that mainland gangsters are moving illegal goods through his business and orders them to stop.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A City of Sadness (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Taiwan's Government Information Office let Hou Hsiao-hsien send a rough cut to Japan, where it was processed and sent straight to the Venice Film Festival without being authenticated by Taiwanese censors; its Golden Lion and Golden Horse wins were a first for Chinese-speaking films but controversial, since the film broke then rules on national language use.
- The deaf-muteness of Wen-ching, the character played by Tony Leung, began as an expedient way to disguise Leung's inability to speak Taiwanese, or the Japanese taught in Taiwan's schools during 51 years of Japanese rule.
- The film's success renewed interest in Taiwanese Hokkien, became part of the Taiyu Language Movement and started a resurgence of Taiwanese films using minority languages such as Hakka and indigenous languages.
- The film drew attention to its shooting locations, and the former mining towns of Jiufen and Jinguashi, once in decline, became popular tourist destinations in the 1990s largely because of the film.
- A City of Sadness was the first film to deal openly with the Kuomintang government's authoritarian rule after its 1945 takeover of Taiwan, and the first to depict the February 28 Incident in Taiwanese cinema.
