A City of Sadness

  • Drama
  • History
10/21/1989
158
NR

Storyline

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror", mainland China's political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government in the late 1940s.

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      • badelf

        This film, even at 20 years old, may be the strongest cinematic statement I've ever seen against country "boundaries" and "imperialism".

        Between the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese people lived in Taiwan under Japanese rule for two generations. By WW II, they were living alongside the Japanese and the remaining (that's another story) indigenous peoples more or less peacefully. The Taiwanese, after two generations, were neither Chinese, nor Japanese, nor indigenous.

        When Japan lost the war and withdrew, the Chinese government took over with disastrous consequences. THAT is viscerally described in this masterpiece.

        What's really lost on a white boy like me is the nuances of the dialects. In fact, the reason that Tony Leung is ...

        November 15, 2021

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