Shooting for the first time in Malaysia after 7 features set primarily in Taipei, director Tsai Ming-Liang returns to his birthplace with a film unlike any of his prior works. Different in texture, mood and feel, and featuring a cast of multi-cultural and multi-lingual characters, the vivid, crowded, neon-lit streets of Kuala Lumpur come alive as only master director Tsai Ming-Liang can capture... As with most of Tsai's films, actor Lee Kang-Sheng is featured, this time in dual roles as both a homeless bum and a paralysed young man.
After being robbed and attacked one night in Kuala Lumpur, Hsiao-kang, a homeless Chinese man, is rescued and taken in by some Bangladeshi workers. One of them, Rawang, lets him sleep beside him on an old mattress that he had found on the street. Later, when Chyi, a waitress at a coffee-shop, meets Hsiao-kang, she is filled with lustful desire. As Hsiao-kang slowly recovers, he finds himself caught between Rawang and Chyi - as well as Chyi's female boss. Meanwhile, a heavy haze descends on the city that is so humid that it stinks of the perspiration of its multi-ethnic people. These men and women and the old mattress lose their way in the haze but find one another...
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Reviews
"beautiful... If you haven't discovered this fascinating artist yet, here's your cue"
TIM ROBEY, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
"A gorgeous, painterly film... gentle, moving and utterly mesmerising"
5 BEST FILMS THE INDEPENDENT
"a dreamlike beauty... lit exquisitely... languid sensuality"
WENDY IDE, THE TIMES
"essential viewing... extraordinary"
DEREK MALCOLM, EVENING STANDARD
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FILM OF THE WEEK TIME OUT
"Spare an evening, if you feel adventurous... he specialises in sex, songs and surreal cityscapes"