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Hou Hsiao-hsien's 2001 film, at last getting US distribution, is both a brilliant, casual portrait of contemporary urban nightlife and a lovely paean to star Shu Qi. Her Vicky is a young Taiwanese woman trapped in an obsessive relationship with the jealous Hao Hao (Tuan Chun-hao). Neither of the two appears to have much going on in life: she never finished school because he didn’t wake her up on the day of her exams; he’s a drug aficionado and would-be DJ who at one point is reduced to stealing his father’s Rolex. The film spends much of its languorous running time depicting the pair’s slack, momentum-less, random existence. Much of the success of Millennium Mambo is due to the cinematography by Mark Lee Ping-bin, who makes each frame a mosaic of electric color. As a sensuous experience, the film is incredible: colors seem to move at their own speeds, independently of the actors; scenes start on shock cuts to fields of pure pastel purple or blue; Hou’s busy, exciting long takes distribute his zoned-out cast at various distances from the camera, whose circling movements and almost imperceptible focus shifts impart an unearthly grace to the mundane goings-on. Despite its cool, nothing’s-happening mood and its occasional sordidness, Millennium Mambo is a work of high spirits and quiet compassion; Hou affirms his heroine’s quest for dignity and backs it up with a profound sensitivity to ordinary pleasures. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (120m)
BY CHRIS FUJIWARA
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