Seeing Patterns in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang

Along with Hsiao-hsien Hou and Edward Yang, Tsai Ming-liang is one of the most celebrated directors of Second New Wave Taiwanese Cinema. He has made ten internationally acclaimed feature films —including Stray Dogs, now streaming on Fandor—that, along with telling unvarnished and complex stories of contemporary life in Taiwan and Malaysia, make use of a number of recurring themes and motifs: phone booths, sexuality, mirrors, and musical numbers, to name a few. This video dives into the aesthetic and thematic patterns of a daring yet subtle minimalist auteur, and the ways he uses his many trademarks. Did you like this video? Don’t miss our other Moodboard episodes on John Hughes, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Jim Jarmusch.