Mahjong

Four young men in Taipei live off small scams. Their leader, Red Fish, is cornered by his father's debts. Marthe, a French girl newly arrived in the city, and some English businessmen enter the story, and as everyone tries to use everyone else it becomes unclear who is deceiving whom. Edward Yang wrote and directed. Virginie Ledoyen plays Marthe. The film describes Taipei in the mid-nineties: foreign capital, nightclubs, property money and a city changing fast. Yang is interested less in individuals than in how that change shapes people. The dialogue moves between Mandarin, English and French, and the mixture is the subject: nobody fully understands anybody. The tone is harder and more sardonic than his other films; the characters are openly predatory. It won a special jury prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1996. Who it is for: viewers who like the Taiwanese new wave and city narratives. Who it is not for: anyone looking for warmth; the film defends nobody.