Hsiao-Hsien Hou
- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Of the ten films that Hsiao-Hsien Hou directed between 1980 and 1989, seven
received best film or best director awards from prestigious
international films festivals in Venice, Berlin, Hawaii, and the
Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide
critics' poll, Hou was championed as "one of the three directors most
crucial to the future of cinema."
Hou's birthplace, a county in Kuangtung Province, had been well-known
as an intellectual center in China. In 1948, his family moved to Taiwan
and, like all children raised there, he went through an extremely
demanding educational system. In 1969, he studied film at the National
Taiwan Arts Academy. After graduation in 1972, he worked briefly as a
salesman. Later he began his film career as a scriptwriter and
assistant director.
Hou's films are often concerned with his experiences of growing up in
rural Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s marked a time in which
refugee families from the mainland were struggling painfully for
survival, while the 1960s saw the beginning of the most significant
social change in modern Taiwan. The economic boom of that period meant
the beginning of Western-style industrialization and urbanization. The
normal frustrations of growing up were aggravated by these complicated
changes, and Hou's films are intimate expressions of those experiences.
His emotionally charged work is replete with highly nostalgic images
and beautiful compositions; their power lies in his total
identification with the past and the fate of families who suffered
through difficult times. His stories, often written in collaboration
with scriptwriters T'ien-wen Chu and Nien-Jen Wu, depict the complex
intertwining of the different strands that shape the lives of
individuals. In a poetic yet relaxed style, they reflect a deep
sympathy and a profound humanism.
received best film or best director awards from prestigious
international films festivals in Venice, Berlin, Hawaii, and the
Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide
critics' poll, Hou was championed as "one of the three directors most
crucial to the future of cinema."
Hou's birthplace, a county in Kuangtung Province, had been well-known
as an intellectual center in China. In 1948, his family moved to Taiwan
and, like all children raised there, he went through an extremely
demanding educational system. In 1969, he studied film at the National
Taiwan Arts Academy. After graduation in 1972, he worked briefly as a
salesman. Later he began his film career as a scriptwriter and
assistant director.
Hou's films are often concerned with his experiences of growing up in
rural Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s marked a time in which
refugee families from the mainland were struggling painfully for
survival, while the 1960s saw the beginning of the most significant
social change in modern Taiwan. The economic boom of that period meant
the beginning of Western-style industrialization and urbanization. The
normal frustrations of growing up were aggravated by these complicated
changes, and Hou's films are intimate expressions of those experiences.
His emotionally charged work is replete with highly nostalgic images
and beautiful compositions; their power lies in his total
identification with the past and the fate of families who suffered
through difficult times. His stories, often written in collaboration
with scriptwriters T'ien-wen Chu and Nien-Jen Wu, depict the complex
intertwining of the different strands that shape the lives of
individuals. In a poetic yet relaxed style, they reflect a deep
sympathy and a profound humanism.