The Boys from Fengkuei

Fengkuei is a small fishing town in the Penghu islands. Three young men can find nothing to do there: they fight, they spend money on beer, they look at the sea. Eventually they leave for Kaohsiung on the mainland. Work in the city is not as easy to find as they assumed, and what they left behind in the town does not leave them. The subject is not growing up but only noticing where you come from once you are away from it. A memory of the main character's father returns again and again, and its meaning is completed only at the end. The form marks the turning point in the director's career. From this film onward Hou Hsiao-hsien moved to long takes and a narration that watches its characters from a distance; the break from his earlier popular work is plain. The source of the change is documented: his screenwriting partner Chu Tien-wen gave him the autobiography of the writer Shen Congwen. After that book Hou tried to look at his characters without judgement and with the context kept as wide as possible. The film won the top prize at the Three Continents Festival in Nantes in 1984 and made New Taiwan Cinema visible internationally. Doze Niu is in the cast. Who it is for: viewers curious about Taiwanese cinema or wanting to trace the director's development. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events; the narrative is loose and deliberately scattered.