Film: Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Director: Tsai Ming-Liang
Country: Malaysia / Taiwan
Released: December 2003
Runtime: 81 minutes
Genre: Slow Cinema
Studio: Homegreen Films
Influenced: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhangke, Lav Diaz, Hong Sang-Soo, Mouly Surya
Inevitably drawing comparisons with Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971) and Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988), Tsai Ming-Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn is Asia-Pacific's own nostalgic farewell to a golden age of cinema. Malaysian-born director Tsai studied film in both Taiwan and the USA, and gained a reputation throughout the 1990s for the slow pacing, minimal dialogue and emphasis on visual storytelling of his movies like Rebels of the Neon God (1992), Vive L'Amour (1994) and The Hole (1998). During this time, Tsai developed a deep working relationship with his muse, actor Lee Kang-Sheng, and Lee appears briefly as the projectionist in Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Tsai conceived the film as a tribute to the once-thriving culture of Asian cinema, setting the movie in the old Fu-Ho Theatre on the outskirts of Taipei, during the last 90 minutes of a screening of King Hu's 1967 martial arts classic, Dragon Inn. Tsai has said the film is also a tribute to the mega-cinemas of his Malaysian childhood in Kuching.
Initially, the director had only intended the location to be used for a scene in his previous film, What Time Is It There? (2001), but Goodbye, Dragon Inn developed over time into a feature-length movie. As much as there is a narrative, the film primarily focuses on the odd relationship between the projectionist and a ticket lady (Chen Shiang-Chyi), as well as a Japanese tourist (Mitamura Kiyonobu) who silently observes the last screening. There are also cameo appearances in the audience by Chun Shih and Miao Tien, two actors who originally appeared in Dragon Inn. The movie marked a departure in Tsai's work, away from narrative and towards mood and composition, a process that culminated in his award-winning 2013 film Stray Dogs, which did away with continuity editing altogether. Goodbye, Dragon Inn is not just a lament for things that have been lost, but also a study of space & time and an exploration of existential ennui and failed human connection, in the style of Samuel Beckett.
Several of Tsai's films – notably Vive L'Amour and The River (1997) – feature characters who are grappling with their sexuality, particularly in the context of homosexual relationships, which are characterised by a sense of longing and a search for connection. Tsai's exploration of sexuality in Goodbye, Dragon Inn is more implicit and subdued compared to some of his other films, but it's apparent that the cinema's gay cruising clientele remain one of the few groups still attending its screenings. There's a tragicomic quality to the way the men pass each other in the corridors and loiter in urinals, while also huddling together in the auditorium despite the vast amount of empty seats. Tsai's camera occasionally lingers on the huge, depopulated space of the cinema long after characters leave the screen, as if to emphasise the sadness of the decline in community cohesion and cinema-going.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn received critical acclaim for its unique narrative style, atmospheric direction and contemplative mood, and featured at various international film festivals including Venice and Berlin. At the Taipei Film Awards, it received several nominations, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and won the award for Best Sound Effects, while at the Asian Film Awards, it received nominations for Best Director and Best Editing (Liao Ching-Sung). The contrast between the mono sound of the soundtrack & dialogue of King Hu's Dragon Inn, and the stereo sound of the film itself, is one of the many innovative elements of the movie. Goodbye, Dragon Inn is not just haunted by cinematic history and the large audiences of a bygone era, but it is also – in a later scene – literally haunted by a ghost woman (Yang Kuei-Mai) eating watermelon seeds in one of the back rows, a movie snack that carries cultural weight in Asia. As the lights go up in the auditorium at the end of the screening, all the seats are empty and we're left to wonder if everyone in the audience were just ghosts?
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