Millennium Mambo [Blu-ray]

Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Overview

Master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien directs this look at life in modern Taipei, the first part of a planned series. The film opens with a vivacious lass named Vicky (Shu Qi) sauntering down a neon-lit tunnel as the voice-over describes how she is going to break up with her on and off boyfriend Hao Hao once she has spent the NT$500,000 in her bank account. A young free spirit and party girl, she makes a living for both her and Hao Hao (Tuan Chun-hao) by working at a hostess bar. Lazy, neurotic, and pathologically jealous, Hao Hao spends his time DJ-ing and smoking speed when he is not rifling through Vicky's belongings looking for some hint of infidelity. At work, she meets Jack (played by Hou regular Jack Kao), a businessman with strong links to the mafia who nonetheless is kind and nurturing to Vicky. They soon begin an ambiguous affair. This film was screened at the 2001 Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/27/2023
UPC:	0738329262952
Original Release:	2001
Rating:	R
Source:	Metrograph Pictures
Language:	English
Time:	1:45:00
Sales rank:	13,742

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Shu Qi	Vicky
Jack Kao	Jack
Tuan Chun-hao	Hao-hao
Jun Takeuchi	Jun
Niu Chen-Zer	Doze
Kao Kuo Guang	Godi
Chen Yi-hsuan	Xuan
Jenny Tseng	Jenny
Tramy Wat	Tramy
Jo Jo Huang	Jo Jo
Huang Hsiu	Jessie X
Peng Kang-yu	Dao
Chang Pro	Pro
Ting Chine-chung	Ding
Hsu Huei-ni	Kitty
Lim Giong	Actor,Composer
Duan Jun-Hao	Actor
Niu Chen-Er	Actor
Hanno Yoshihiro	Composer
Fish	Composer

Technical Credits

Chu Tien-wen

Hou Hsiao-Hsien	Director
Chu Tien-wen	Screenwriter
Hwarng Wern-ying	Producer,Executive Producer
Chiou Pei-yi	Casting
Eric Heumann	Producer
Kuo Li-chi	Sound/Sound Designer
Tu Duu-chih	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Millennium Mambo is easily one of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's most challenging and intellectual works in an oeuvre of consistently challenging and intellectual films. Like his 1998 work Goodbye South, Goodbye, Hou's vision of modern Taiwanese society is one of constant distraction -- cell phones, pounding techno music, and drugs of every ilk from speed to alcohol to tobacco. Yet whereas Goodbye balanced the crazed schemes of the protagonists with the images of nature, Mambo offers no such release. Set indoors and bathed in an unearthly neon blue, the film envisions Taiwan's youth as being trapped in this world of immediate gratification yet unable to exert any kind of personal restraint. Hou's use of time is staggeringly innovative -- it jumps around so frequently in this film that it is almost impossible to construct a linear narrative yet the audience never loses the emotional core of the story. Yet for those cinematic souls willing to brave such challenges, they will find Millennium Mambo a breathtaking tour de force. Hou Hsiao-Hsien was voted the most important filmmaker of the 1990s by the International Society of Cinematheques and this film proves why.

All Movie Guide - Jonathan Crow