Good Men, Good Women
dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien · 1995
Being alive involves grappling with the past and the impact of personal relationships on one's identity.
"Good Men, Good Women" intricately weaves the art of performance with the haunting echoes of memory, creating a reflective tapestry that explores identity and longing through the lens of an actress. With its blurred distinctions between reality and fiction, this film invites viewers to contemplate the complexities of love and loss in the realm of cinema.
An actress preparing to play in a historical epic is terrorized by someone faxing her pages from her stolen diary; has colorful flashbacks of her affair with a now-deceased man; and imagines black-and-white film-within-a-film scenes of the movie she is about to appear in.
Full synopsisspoilers
Intended as the concluding film in the trilogy on the modern history of Taiwan began with Beiqing Chengshi (1989), this film reveals the story through three levels: a film within a film as well as the past and present as linked by a young woman, Liang Ching. She is being persecuted by an anonymous man who calls her repeatedly but does not speak. He has stolen her diary and faxes her pages daily. Liang is also rehearsing for a new film that is due to go into production soon.
The film, entitled Haonan Haonu, is about a couple Chiang Bi-yu and Chung Hao-tung who returns to China to participate in the anti-Japanese movement in China in the 1940s and are arrested as communists when they go back to Taiwan.
