Three Times Hou Hsiao Hsien Better Jun 2026

The first segment is partly inspired by Hou's own youth in the 1960s.

The second segment is a radical departure. We jump back in time to 1911, during the final years of the Qing Dynasty. Taiwan is under Japanese colonial rule. Chang Chen plays a revolutionary poet. Shu Qi plays a courtesan-artist, a geisha -like figure. three times hou hsiao hsien

Shu Qi and Chang Chen deliver a tour-de-force of acting, required to play three completely different couples with varying power dynamics. In the first segment, they are shy and tentative; in the second, they are formal and repressed; in the third, they are neurotic and raw. The film relies on the audience’s familiarity with the actors to create a resonance across the segments—we see the same souls trying to find each other in different historical contexts, often failing. The first segment is partly inspired by Hou's

Here, Chang Chen plays a bisexual photographer involved in a volatile relationship with a singer (Shu Qi), who is suffering from a potentially serious illness. This is a world of digital noise and emotional chaos. The characters are free from the social taboos of 1911 and the distance of 1966, yet they are profoundly unhappy. Taiwan is under Japanese colonial rule

Hou shoots this segment in his signature long takes—no close-ups, no reaction shots. The camera sits at a medium distance, watching the characters enter and exit the frame. There is a famous sequence where Chen searches for May across three different towns. We see him board a bus, wait in the rain, knock on a door, and leave. The entire sequence contains almost no dialogue.