Edit | Drama of the past
Hou Xiaoxian's film is more like a freehand Chinese ink painting.
There are no twists and turns, no earth-shattering conflicts, and the long shots with few scene changes are more like monitors installed in people's lives.
Today, when the story is king, Hou Xiaodong is like a cup of boiled water.
However, whenever someone watches his movies, there is always a feeling of sadness that he has lived a new life, Kurosawa said that his films can remind people of the forgotten years, but this leading figure in the Taiwanese film industry is rarely known to mainland audiences.
In Taiwan, Hou Xiaoxian's title is not small, he is regarded as the leader of Taiwan's new wave film, but it was not until 2015 that he released his first film in mainland theaters, "The Assassin Nie Yinniang".
This is also the first meeting between mainland audiences and director Hou Xiaoxian, and even a large part of the audience went to see the movies for Shu Qi.
In the film, Nie Yinniang had been cultivating on the mountain with Daogu for too long, and when she wanted to integrate into the human world, she could only look at it from a distance.
Nie Yinniang is obviously the protagonist of the whole film, but the time she speaks is pitifully small, and Hou Xiaoxian tells the story of a Qingluan under the guise of the person in the film.
After the qingluan was captive by the king, it did not sound for three years, and someone paid tribute to the idea, saying that the qingluan would only sing high when he saw the same kind, ask the king to hang the mirror to look at it, the king did it, the qingluan saw himself in the mirror, and sure enough, he began to mourn, and the green luan danced against the mirror, and fought hard.
This story is the whole eye of Nie Yinniang, and it is also the story of Hou Xiaoxian's life.
Hou Xiaoxian was born in 1947, and around the time of his birth, his father was still in Meizhou, Guangdong Province, as the director of the Education Bureau, and his family conditions were relatively wealthy.
After Hou Xiaoxian was born, his father was reunited with his old friend, who was preparing to become mayor of Taichung at this time, and he invited Hou Xiaoxian to take office in Taichung with him as an assistant secretary general.
Hou's father promised his friend that he would continue to return to Meizhou when his term of office was over, but after 1949, the mainland became the hometown where Hou Xiaoxian had never met.
Hou's father also failed to accompany Hou Xiaoxian for a long time, he ran a newspaper earlier, day and night, and suffered from lung cancer at a young age.
Hou Xiaoxian was only 12 years old, and when he was called by his mother to shake hands with his father, he had not yet understood what death was.
After his father left, the family's financial resources were cut off, and the family lived in poverty.
Her mother was not used to Taiwan's humid and hot climate, and almost at the moment of her father's departure, she also had cancer, and Hou Xiaoxian was still hanging out with a group of brothers when her mother was treating her.
Grandmother is old, there is no way to discipline the lively and active young people, before she was paralyzed, my grandmother liked to walk around the street, saying that she wanted to go back to the ancestral ancestral hall to worship, and after the grandmother was paralyzed, she sat in her small room and chanted to go back to the mainland.
The mother who suffered from cancer had no money to treat the disease, and died when Hou Xiaoxian was 17 years old, and the next year, her grandmother, who had always wanted to return to the mainland, also closed her eyes, and since then, Hou Xiaoxian has become an orphan.
Without the discipline of his family, he became a ubiquitous on the streets.
At the age of 21, Hou Xiaoxian, like all young people in Taiwan, had to serve in the army, and he did not know what else he could do in the future, standing at the crossroads of life, but he did not know where to go.
In his spare time, the army would show the popular movies of the time to the soldiers, and Hou Xiaoxian also said that the movies at this time inspired him and made him decide to become a film director in ten years.
After the end of his service, Hou Xiaoxian gave up his former life as a street gangster and began to study intently, and was admitted to the National Art College.
However, the director of this road, after all, is not so easy to walk, the family road in the middle of the fall, there is no spare money to support himself to pursue his dreams, after graduation, Hou Xiaoxian, can only obediently go to the job, and then in an electronics factory in front of the sales.
At that time, Taiwan was in a period of martial law, directors could not make some in-depth films, love and love of Qiong Yao drama has become the director's eyes of the fragrant food, Hou Xiaoxian can enter the film industry, is also stained with the light of Qiong Yao drama.
Before he actually became a director, Hou Xiaoxian participated in the shooting and production of 14 films, all of which were invariably Qiong Yao dramas, or imitation Qiong Yao dramas.
Even the first three films directed by Hou Xiaoxian himself could not escape the influence of Qiong Yao.
Hou Xiaoxian felt that the film should not only focus on the small love between men and women, from his first film to direct "Just Slippery Her".
Hou Xiaoxian has already focused the lens on the background of the times, although love is the theme of the movie, Hou Xiaoxian has begun to pay attention to depicting the environment in which the protagonists live.
Director Li Xing, who brought Hou Xiaoxian into the industry, is the pioneer of Taiwanese healthy realism films.
Most of the protagonists of this type of film are self-reliant and strive to build their hometowns, and Hou Xiaoxian, influenced by him, also absorbs healthy realism into his films.
However, there was only one question in front of Hou Xiaoxian, was his hometown the land where he grew up, or the continent that his grandmother was talking about day and night?
My father also said that when Taiwan is restored, the family will be able to go back, but after my father's death for so many years, the two sides of the strait are still separated, and it is still difficult to complain.
1983 was a very special year for Hou Xiaoxian, when he made "The Man from the Wind Cabinet"
Beginning to focus on the confused generation, A Qing in the film is more like the epitome of Hou Xiaoxian himself, they also have an absent father, the same scar on their legs that was scratched by their mother, and they also walked to the big city, but they don't know how to deal with themselves.
The whole film is very quiet, Hou Xiaoxian seems to just take out a part of his life to share with the audience, but it can make the people who watch it have a lot of thoughts in their hearts.
The film also allowed him to win the first award for best film in the three continents of Nantes, France, with international influence
It was also since 1983 that Hou Xiaoxian's films have won awards, and he has gradually embarked on his own master's path.
At the end of the 1980s, many directors began to focus on history, among which the New Wave Movement of Taiwanese cinema, represented by Hou Xiaoxian and his friend Yang Dechang, focused on the transformation of Taiwanese society.
Another important work of Hou Xiaoxian, "City of Sorrows", is filmed on the impact of the "228 Incident" on Taiwan
The Lin family has declined because of the great changes of the torrent of the times, Hou Xiaoxian is not the incident of the four brothers of the Lin family, more like a history of Taiwan, Hou Xiaoxian with a pair of wandering eyes, indifferently watching everything that happened in this part of Taiwan.
Taiwan was inevitably separated from the mainland due to reasons left over from history, but at that time there were still many People in Taiwan who looked forward to the day when the two sides of the strait could be reunified.
Hou Xiaoxian filmed this emotion into "Love Wind and Dust"
Before Ah Yuan became a soldier, his father bought him a lighter, and when Ah Yuan became a soldier, this lighter was given to fishermen in Guangdong by him
Because the boat was damaged, they drifted to Taiwan, and the relationship between the two places did not affect the people at the bottom, and the counselor warmly brought them food to entertain them and helped them repair the boat, until after the fishermen left, Ah Yuan still stood on the head of the reef and fell in love.
Although Hou Xiaoxian lost his father very early, the color of Hou Xiaoxian's films is like a calm and introverted old father, telling the audience his past stories.
Many people who have made a difference in the field of film regard Hou Xiaoxian as their father.
Yasujiro Ozu is a well-known director in Japan, and his father is considered the best collection of Asian fathers
Among the new generation of Japanese directors, Kore-eda, who won the Palme d'Or, is undoubtedly the most accomplished director in the new generation
He is believed to be the successor of the film master Yasujiro Ozu, because the two styles are very similar, and the industry generally believes that he was influenced by Ozu Yasujiro, but Kore-eda denied this statement, and his favorite director has always been Hou Hyo-hyun.
In 2020, the 57th Golden Horse Awards awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award to Hou Xiaoxian
After Kore-eda learned of this news, he came to Taiwan in advance for 14 days of isolation, just so that he could have contact with Hou Xiaoxian again
At the award ceremony, he took the initiative to talk about today, he is standing here on behalf of Hou Dao's children, he has endured the influence of Hou Xiaoxian, so he is a fan of his movies, and he is also like one of his sons.
Hou Xiaoxian makes movies, and the protagonist is like his personal autobiography most of the time
They all have three or two good friends, a silent father, and most of the time, the protagonist just lives idly by
They have no lofty ideals and live a daily life without alarm
The biggest blow was that he stole five dollars from the family and was beaten by his mother, and Qingmei Zhuma could not wait for his military service to marry the postman
Such a simple, trivial life, but in the long shot of Hou-style signboard, it can become another life of the audience.