The Public Humanities Hub is pleased to work with the Cinema Thinks the World Research Cluster at UBC and The Cinematheque to offer a limited number of free tickets to the June 2nd film screening Goodbye, Dragon Inn, directed by Tsai Ming-liang (Taiwan, 2003, 82 min), followed by a panel discussion with UBC scholars and filmmakers. Please e-mail us if you’re interested the free tickets. Free tickets are first-come first-served.
And join us for the next event in the series: Maliglutit.
Thursday, June 2, 2022
7:00 PM
The Cinematheque
1131 Howe Street, Vancouver BC V6Z 2L7
Taiwan-based Malaysian auteur Tsai Ming-liang reached formidable new heights with 2003’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn, his spellbinding ode to movie palaces of old and the culture disappearing in their absence. The film, considered by the director to be among his finest, depicts the twilight hours of a once-magisterial Taipei movie house, showing King Hu’s 1967 wuxia classic Dragon Inn before shuttering for good. Few are in attendance; most are appallingly behaved. A Japanese tourist cruises for casual sex in the building’s labyrinthine halls; the manager (Chen Shiang-chyi), hindered by a pronounced limp, searches in vain for the projectionist (Lee Kang-sheng) to offer him a steam bun. Tsai’s minimalist masterpiece—slight on story, immaculate in form—unfolds almost entirely without dialogue, save for the swordplay epic within it. In our present COVID moment, as cinemas reopen but streaming holds sway, Goodbye’s soulful lament for a vanishing era of mass moviegoing carries particular poignancy.
Dragon Inn, King Hu’s legendary martial-arts picture, figures prominently in Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Experience both films, back to back, June 3, 4 & 6.
“Eerily exquisite … A nearly wordless, perfectly made moviegoing ballad … Tsai Ming-liang, in addition to being a sterling director, is a superior magician.” Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
“A movie of elegant understatement and considerable formal intelligence.” J. Hoberman, Village Voice
The June 2 screening of Goodbye, Dragon Inn is presented as part of “Cinema Thinks the World,” a partnership project between UBC and The Cinematheque. After the film, there will be a short reception followed by a one-hour panel talk with audience discussion.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn panellists are Chelsea Birks, Igor Drljaca, Christine Evans, Helena Wu, and Mila Zuo.
“Cinema Thinks the World” is sponsored by the Public Humanities Hub at the University of British Columbia. Through a series of public screenings, panel talks, and discussions, it aims to explore the ways in which global cinema represents and helps us to think about the world.