The film begins with the production of a woman, the only son of the Lin family's eldest son, Fumio, is born during a speech by Emperor Hirohito of Japan announcing his surrender. The bright birth he brought signifies the beginning of a new era for Taiwan, and the cry of this sickly weak baby all day long heralds Taiwan's doomed fate. Since the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan has occupied Taiwan for 50 years. Under the Japanese government's "de-sinicization" colonial rule, Taiwan passively accepted Japanese culture. From the Japanese-speaking photographer, to the Showa era (07:10) used in the narration, to the Japanese-style residence, it all shows the influence of Japanese culture on ordinary Taiwanese people. The 50 years of Japanese occupation caused a rupture between Taiwan and the motherland, both historically and culturally. And this sense of rupture has paved the way for the subsequent conflicts between Taiwan natives and people from other provinces and the Kuomintang.
The film sees the big from the small, and reflects the hardships and hardships of the whole Taiwan from the rise and fall of a Taiwanese family. Lin's elder son, Wenxiong, runs the family's business. He is impatient and a little rough, but he has the demeanor of a big brother. As an elder brother in the traditional Chinese sense, he succeeded his aging father and supported the huge family and helped every brother, but he was eventually caught up in the turbulence of the times and died in a fight with gangsters in other provinces. Wen Xiong, who existed like a pillar of the family, fell to the ground with a bang, followed by a long-range aerial shot. In the misty mountains, an eagle hovered in the air until it escaped into the sky. Hou Hsiao-hsien's films often adhere to the "spirit" editing, combining clips with emotions, rendering emotions invisible, and reflecting the profound influence of oriental culture.
The fourth son of the Lin family, Wen Qing, played by Tony Leung, was deaf at the age of eight and made a living by taking pictures. His identity as a deaf-mute person symbolizes the collective aphasia of the Taiwanese people under the Kuomintang dictatorship, and also enables the protagonist to be on the political fringes, thus forming a bystander perspective. However, even such a deaf and mute person on the edge could not escape the fate of tragic. The dictatorship of the Kuomintang further widened the rift between people in this province and those in other provinces. On February 27, 1947, KMT police officers accidentally injured ordinary citizens in the process of "anti-smuggling cigarettes", triggering a large-scale armed riot, which eventually evolved into the February 28 Incident. In the Kuomintang's repression and the "Qingxiang Movement", a large number of intellectuals were involved and were brutally persecuted. All the confidants and friends who sang the "Trilogy in Exile" to the mountains and rivers in the restaurant were all killed, and Wen Qing could not escape this disaster and was imprisoned. Companions were killed in court one after another. When Wen Qing was also ordered to appear in court, the director used the long and narrow corridor of the prison to set up a composition with a strong sense of depth, conveying the characters' repressed emotions. In the fixed long shot, Wen Qing walked slowly, and the long corridor seemed to be his silent life for more than 20 years.
The film records life itself in a way of watching from the sidelines, and those fixed long shots shot from lower camera positions present everyday scenes one by one. The world outside is treacherous and changeable, and the fate of the characters is ups and downs, but life is always the same as usual. People still eat and chat quietly, time flows slowly, and life comes and goes. This minimal intervention approach conveys the director's pursuit of almost "lawful nature".
In the 1970s and 1980s, Taiwan's economy developed rapidly, and the entire society changed from a traditional urban and rural civilization to a modern urban civilization. In this rapid change, people gradually lost their way. In order to get rid of this kind of loss, the director focused the lens on Taiwan's century-old historical changes, trying to find the roots of culture for this rootless island, so as to complete his own redemption and find the future direction of Taiwan. And this kind of thinking about history and reality precipitated in the film may be the reason why "City of Sadness" can become a classic.
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