The River // He Liu
(China, 1997, 115 min.)
Director: Tsai Ming-Liang
Screenplay: Tsai Ming-Liang, Tsai Yi-Chun
Cast: Lee Kang-Sheng, Miao Tien, Lu Yi-Ching
The film depicts a powerful dramatic portrait of a not-so-ordinary dysfunctional urban family. In Taiwan, Xiao-kang, a young man in his early 20s, shares apartment with his parents, but the three of them rarely speak to each other. He is plagued by severe neck pain. His father is bedeviled by water first leaking into his bedroom and then flooding the apartment; rain is incessant. Xiao-kang’s mother is overcome by sexual longing for her son, sometimes making seemingly incestuous overtures. They try virtually every intervention for Xiao-kang’s neck: Western medicine, a chiropractor, acupuncture, an herbal doctor, and a faith healer, Master Liu, but nothing seems to help. Are the family’s silent dynamics and Xiao-kang’s neck pain connected?
Film is screened in the Asian Extreme: Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng
Screening shedule
– only for press
24 June
