Goodbye South, Goodbye

Starring:Pi-tung Lien, Annie Shizuka Inoh, Jack Kao, Giong Lim, Hsiang Hsi, Vicky Wei, Ming Lei, Ming Kao, Kuei-Ying Hsu
Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

Description

Kao, a small-time crook from Taiwan's suburban backwater, becomes entangled in a dangerous game of corrupt politics when his temperamental friend Flat Head antagonizes the wrong people.

Customer Reviews:

The All-Unseeing Eye.......2006-09-02

Just a couple of years ago, Hou Hsiao-hsien made "Café Lumiere", a tribute to the great Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. At first glance, the Taiwanese director may seem to share with his illustrious predecessor a love of keeping the camera at a safe remove from his characters, letting them at least seem to live out their lives away from the furious Steadicammed intrusions that so many modern (but hardly "modernist") filmmakers prefer. Yet it is hard for me to see how Hsiao-Hsien fits into the league of Ozu, and harder still to see how he explains some contemporary zeitgeist.

"Goodbye South..." is a film about familiar themes: a small-time Taiwanese gangster wants to go into business on mainland China, but gets let down by his hotheaded younger brother... and, to be honest, that's all I can remember. It's just so undistinguished; one chapter merges into another, with lots of clever cross-cutting between timeframes. One of the director's favourite tricks is to show a tinted subjective shot of a driver going along various roads. Later on in the film we find out the tints correspond to the sunglasses the brothers are wearing. Of course, you could say that this is all very clever, as it confounds the audience's expectations as to how far removed they are from the action without immediately informing us of this directorial ruse. And of course there will always be people that confuse Hsiao-Hsien's cool, detached style for some highly original recasting of the rules whereby contemporary films are made. Never mind that Orson Welles dared to anchor a camera in one place to record a family talking during their dinner in "The Magnificent Ambersons" back in 1942, or directors such as John Cassevetes have been making "banal" conversation -actually anything but- the subject of entire films, such as "Faces" (1968). The only way that Hsiao-Hsien's films could seem original, is that so much modern commercial cinema is so woefully conservative.

Compare Hsiao-Hsien with another east Asian, Wong Kar-Wai. Although the Hong Kong director's films are not daringly original, they have one thing that his Taiwanese counterpart lacks: class. Kar-Wai has a clear understating of the genres that he is referring to, subverting them in subtle ways; he doesn't draw back his camera and elongate his takes because we never get to see the characters that way. He actually creates interiority in films like "In the Mood for Love", throwing out backgrounds and scene-setting in order to focus on characters' spatial and emotional relationships with each other. Part of Ozu's greatness was that he could make seemingly banal things interesting, not through discarding banal detail but by somehow accentuating it, and in turn linking it with his characters' emotional and social lives. Yet both Ozu and Kar-Wai share the same language of social interdependence, and express this without need of gimmicks which actually get in the way rather than express anything new or even interesting.

The desperate search for new and interesting voices in cinema on the part of critics merely creates an Emperor's New Clothes mentality of gimmicks and, worst of all, a kind of "it hasn't got CGI, so it must be good" mindset which is very hard to get out of. Similarly, cinema won't find a new lease of life by simply pulling back the camera and introducing boring long takes as if to baton down the hatches against blockbusters and CGI.

Taipei blues in slow motion.......2002-12-19

Goodbye south goodbye is a strange Taiwanese movie. Film is about the family relations within a low life gang group.
It is called as the re make of "mean streets" but it is much more different than that movie. It is not a strict made in Taiwan copy. Story is not very central and director focuses more on the personalities of the characters. Kao is the big brother who means business in his gang circle. He tries to make investments like opening up a restaurant in shanghai with the money he earns in corrupt ways. His brother flatty and the girl pretzel causes non stop trouble which ends up with kao alone trying to clean up the mess. Kao is low on moral, unable to propose her long time lover ying. He even finds running a small restaurant too difficult to cope. Ying is also dissapointed and waiting for a signal to get out of this.
Film shows low life gang business as a tricky but not an action packed life. Dealing with issues like local politicians, lawnowners as well as pigs, it is by no means an action movie. Apart from couple of shoutings and punches, do not expect a john woo showdown here. Instead issues go rather realistic, kao's failure in life, flatty and pretzel's dependence on him makes most of the film. Even when flatty is beaten up by a police causin, his dreams of taking a revenge with a gun fails miserably before we see the gun and kao and flatty ends up in jail and only saved by the head of the gang who begs for help from a local politician.
Acting is good, especially kao character and flatty are well drawn. Movie sometimes is closer to a documentary style of a work. Music is extremely good. Blasting modern mandarin pop and rock with electronica really puts some heat to this slow moving film.
It is not a very easy film and many will label it as a terribly boring movie. But I personally enjoyed it and reccomend you If you wish to see something different. Patience always pays off in new Taiwanese films.

don't watch.......2002-09-18

This is one of the few Taiwanese flicks with good English subtitles. More of an art than a plot film even though it gives a very convincing portrayal of the nasty netherworld behind Taiwanese thug life. The film progresses VERY slowly because the camera focuses extensively on not just the physical environment inhabited by thugs, but the style, look, behavior and demeanors of the gangsters themselves. Basically, the camera focuses on each individual scene until you have absorbed every little detail there is to it. If this film is intended for a foreign audience, the director certainly has made an attempt bring the viewer into the foreign world of Taiwanese organized crime, though the cinematography is not well done. There are some interesting shots of Taiwanese countryside along with footage of thug territory; such as dark dirty, ghetto studio sized rooms accommodating five, six individuals, which usually includes their drug addict women, a punching bag suspended from the ceiling, stray cats, etc. Art imitating life, these characters are always out to play their game for conquest and victory, except it's to - con big money, maintain symbiotic relations with politicians, and wage covert operations. If you're already taiwanese, there's nothing new in this film. If not, there's little you can get out of it since much of the film seems to be shot in the dark so it's hard to tell what's going on.

inspiring.......2002-01-12

Goodbye South, Goodbye is not for everyone, but if you give it try, you may see how incredible this film is. The dolly shots from the trains and on the motorcycles are beautiful and really give you a taste of the atmosphere. During the film the camera is like an object in the setting that gives you an inner look into the world of Gao and flatty (the two brothers). As a filmmaker this film has inspired me immensly and I highly recommend it.

Not for all tastes, but great in my opinion.......2001-09-23

Hou's films are very difficult for the majority of people to sit through. I realize this. Still, I feel compelled to give this film my highest reccomendation. It's nothing short of a masterpiece.

Goodbye South Goodbye is filled with long lulls of dead space that are ... with scenes of violent narrative. We feel dazed into a sense of peace (boredom?) by the film's nonaction and slow rhythms, and then every ten or twenty minutes, something completely unexpected happens. It always manages to hit with that much more impact because you've been dulled a bit by the direction.

We get the sense that we're outsiders staring at a different world here (a feeling that's present in most of Hou's films). It's more stunning here because he manages to create that feeling in a modern day setting (the film follows two brothers that are low-level gangsters). Hou shoots scenes through doorways and windows. He uses color filters. He paces things at a more lifelike than movie like pace. Technically, its an amazing film. There are some great dolly shots as the characters travel by car or motorcycle that make the film worthwhile by themselves. Hou seems to be saying that if we want to understand these characters, we need to understand the world that they inhabit. To me this is infinitely superior to how the character responds to some artificial crisis created by a plot.

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