Quote:
Excerpt from “Slow Time, Visible Cinema: Duration, Experience, and Spectatorship” by Tiago de Luca, originally published in Cinema Journal Vol. 56, No. 1 (Fall, 2016)

A limping woman (Chen Shiang-chyi), with a broom in hand, walks into an empty cinema auditorium framed in a static long shot. She enters the frame from the right, walks up the stairs while slowly sweeping the floor, crosses the upper part of the auditorium, and then climbs down the stairs on the other side and leaves the frame from the left, an action that lasts nearly three minutes. The clicking sound of her leg brace, acoustically enhanced against the silent emptiness of the setting she unhurriedly traverses, repetitively punctuates the slowness of her actions. As she leaves the frame, the camera continues recording the large silent auditorium, now devoid of human presence, for nearly three minutes.

From Goodbye, Dragon Inn, by Malaysia-born, Taiwan-based director Tsai Ming-liang, this single stationary shot is charged with meaning in that it lays bare the waning of the theatrical experience as visualized in an empty movie theater. Yet beyond its obvious symbolism, this scene is also emblematic in that it makes no concession to those viewers avid for storytelling. Lasting nearly six minutes and featuring no camera movement, its audiovisual content is slowed down through the limping movements of a woman with a physical disability in its first half, and then reduced to the unchanging sight of an empty space through the remaining duration. In many ways, this shot radicalizes hallmarks of contemporary slow cinema in the sense not only that it is premised on the hyperbolic application of the long take but also that the long take is here combined with other elements that together may likely produce the experience of slowness for the spectator, namely, silence, stillness, minimalism, and an emphasis on duration itself—all of which force the audience to confront images and sounds in their material and perceptual plenitude.

At first glance, this formal idiom, steeped in unbroken takes depleted of dramatic charge, would seem to comply with Bazin’s defense of the sequence shot, which in his view implies “a more active mental attitude on the part of the spectator,” who is then “called on to exercise at least a minimum of personal choice” and from whose attention “the meaning of the image in part derives.” Although this is true in many respects, there is a crucial difference here related to the ways in which this scene extrapolates the dramaturgic dictates of Bazin’s temporal realism, which, as I have explored elsewhere, was often governed by narrative imperatives. As Tsai’s unpopulated cinema vividly indicates, what is often the case in the contemporary slow aesthetic is that it proceeds through opaque and elusive images whose temporal indeterminancy far exceeds plot demands, if a plot even exists.

Bu.san AKA.Goodbye.Dragon.Inn.2003.576p.Repack.Bluray.AC3.x264-LAA.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 21mn
Size:	3.39 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	1024x552
Aspect ratio:	1.85:1
Frame rate:	24.000 fps
Bit rate:	5 352 kb/s
Audio
#1:	Chinese 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s
#2:	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 66.2 kb/s (Commentary by film critic Phoebe Chen)
#3:	Chinese 2.0ch AAC LC @ 64.8 kb/s (Commentary by Professor Lin Wenchi and Chen-Ya Li)

https://nitro.download/view/16E75264DAE62AE/Bu.san_AKA.Goodbye.Dragon.Inn.2003.576p.Repack.Bluray.AC3.x264-LAA.mkv

Language(s):Mandarin
Subtitles:English

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Bu san AKA Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Explores the background behind an adolescent (Lee Kang-sheng) extorting money from other adolescents.

Xiao hai 1991 NTSC DVD DD2.0 x264-Mdr.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	45 min 12 s
Size: 	626 MiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	700x480 ~> 700x540
Aspect ratio:  	1.296
Frame rate: 	29.970 fps
Bit rate: 	1 549 kb/s
BPP: 	0.154
Audio
#1:  	Chinese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 384 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/0D0B7BA7E78C873/Xiao_hai_1991_NTSC_DVD_DD2.0_x264-Mdr.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/088CC43E49F91CB/Xiao_hai_1991_NTSC_DVD_DD2.0_x264-Mdr.en.srt

Language(s):Mandarin
Subtitles:English

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Xiao hai AKA Boys (1991) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

When a young street vendor with a grim home life meets a woman on her way to Paris, they forge an instant connection. He changes all the clocks in Taipei to French time; as he watches François Truffaut’s “Les 400 Coups,” she has a strange encounter with its now-aging star, Jean-Pierre Leaud.

Review from DVDBeaver:
Tsai Ming-Liang follows his trademark ‘pondering static camera’ (“Rebels of the Neon God”, “The River”, “The Hole” and “Vive L’Amour” ) with his fifth feature film, “What Time is it There?”. His unconventional style will deter many cinema goers who might envisage something more easily penetrable, perhaps requiring less speculation. In a pure minimalist vein, Tsai uses no music (aside from “The 400 Blows” theme played sparingly). There is no cinematographic panning shots… no camera movement for each take. Each scene is a single static shot. There are almost no close-ups. There are extremely long stretches without any dialogue. Hopefully, this does not send you running in the other direction because it is indeed a wonderful viewing experience touching upon many important modern emotional themes.

The major plot focuses on a watch-selling street vendor named Hsiao-Kang played by Kang-Sheng Lee who has appeared in all Tsai Ming-Liang’s feature films (NOTE: Hsiao-Kang is also his real-life nickname). In the film his father has passed away and he and his Mother (Lu Yi-Ching) have amusing difficulty in accepting this, coping in their own unusual fashion. Hsaio-Kang has just sold his own watch to a beautiful girl, Shiang-Chyi Chen, who is now in Paris. His longing for her manifests itself in his desire to watch French films (Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” ), drink wine, and set every clock and watch within his grasp to Parisian time.

Because of Kang’s obsessive time piece adjustments, which is misconstrued by his Mother as a sign of her deceased husband’s reincarnation, the three major characters of the film become somehow synchronized. Shiang-Chyi Che co-incidentally meets the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, star of 1959’s “The 400 Blows”, on a park bench in a cemetery (actually right across from Léaud’s real-life home in Paris). All three major characters eat at the same moment and Kang, his Mother and Shiang each have a meaningless sexual escapade simultaneously. Shiang beds a friendly female she meets whilst vomiting in a restaurant toilet, Kang has sex with a thieving prostitute in the backseat of his car and the Mother masturbates with what looks like a whicker basket, to a photo of her deceased husband close by.

Tsai has a magnificent eye his shots are wonderfully abstract and refreshing. Most often he does not allowing the focus of activity to be in the center of the frame, lending itself slightly to an aura of realism. Tsai and his films have been compared to great directors of the past including Antonioni, Bresson and even Keaton. Michelangelo Antonioni for his use of sparse dialogue and recurrent theme of personal isolation. Buster Keaton for Kang’s comedic dead-pan sense of natural timing. Regardless, Tsai’s films all work from their own level of eccentricity in both the tone and examination of prevalent motifs.

Pointing out life’s absurdities in an honest and dour spirit, Tsai recounts previous film themes such as lack of communication, self-imposed solitary depression, indiscriminant sexual acts predicated on overflowing desire and new for this film; coping with death. He both exposes and pokes fun at his own Buddhist religious conventions while maintaining an arm’s length respect. It is all at once humorous, honest and sad. Photographed with style and beauty, this aspect of Tsai’s work has matured enormously. It is hard not to refer back to many scenes of his past films, if you have been lucky enough to view them. I strongly recommend this film, but suggest that first-time viewers may garner more from a gradual transition to Tsai’s work, perhaps seeing them in chronological order. To state simply that I loved this would be an understatement. I am so enamored with it and feeling pretty eccentric myself these days so I just set my computer clock to Parisian time… and urge you to do the same.

	
What Time is it There.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 55 min
Size: 	1.60 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	702x552 ~> 981x552
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 800 kb/s
BPP: 	0.194
Audio
#1:  	Chinese 5.1ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/99E866AD75097FF/What_Time_is_it_There.mkv

Language(s):Mandarin, French, Min Nan, English
Subtitles:English

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Ni na bian ji dian AKA What Time is it There? (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

This short by Tsai Ming-liang, completed in 2021, was filmed at “the Dune” in Yilan, Taiwan, where the eight films in his Walker series were being shown.

A wordless performance/installation short film from Tsai.

2.30GB | 34m 24s | 1546×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/24B33D4C6C36CAC/wandering.2021.1080p.bluray.x264-bipolar.mkv

Language:None
Subtitles:None

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Wandering (2021) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Forest fires burn in Sumatra; a smoke covers Kuala Lumpur. Grifters beat an immigrant day laborer and leave him on the streets. Rawang, a young man, finds him, carries him home, cares for him, and sleeps next to him. In a loft above lives a waitress. She sometimes provides care and attention. More violence seems a constant possibility. They find another man abandoned on the street, paralyzed. They carry him. While no one speaks to each other, sounds dominate: coughing, cooking, coupling, opening bags; music and news reports on a radio, the rattle and buzz of a restaurant. It’s dark in the city at night. We see down hallways, through doors, down alleys. Who sleeps with whom?

Extras:
● Tony Rayns – (2007) Interview with Director Ming-liang Tsai

1.65GB | 1h 53m | 1013×504 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/3BC3E2043F21006/Ming-liang_Tsai_-_(2006)_I_Don’t_Want_to_Sleep_Alone.mkv https://nitro.download/view/EB2BFAAF9FEBA0B/Tony_Rayns_-_(2007)_Interview_with_Director_Ming-liang_Tsai.mkv

Language:Min Nan,Malay,Mandarin,Bengali
Subtitles:English

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Hei yan quan AKA I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone [+Extras] (2006) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Kang lives alone in a big house, Non in a small apartment in town. They meet, and then part, their days flowing on as before.

2.37GB | 2s 06m | 1280×690 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/62F322CD1BA5788/Days.AKA.Rizi.2020.720p.WEB.x264-gooz.mkv

Language:None
Subtitles:None

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Rizi AKA Days (2020) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Filmmaker Ming-liang Tsai sits with Lee Kang-sheng in a house as they have a discussion.

Quote:
This conversation between Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang and his muse Lee Kang-sheng illuminates one of the great actor-director collaborations in cinema history.

Na.ri.xia.wu.AKA.Afternoon.2015.576p.Bluray.AAC.x264-LAA.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 16 min
Size: 	2.52 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x562 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 413 kb/s
BPP: 	0.175
Audio
#1:  	Chinese 2.0ch AAC LC @ 220 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/EDEF62545A45420/Na.ri.xia.wu.AKA.Afternoon.2015.576p.Bluray.AAC.x264-LAA.mkv

Language(s):Chinese
Subtitles:English

The post Ming-liang Tsai – Na ri xia wu AKA Afternoon (2015) first appeared on Cinema of the World.