“I can still vividly recall skipping the last two classes of the day one afternoon in 11th Grade, going off to a nearby library and stumbling on a stream of this movie long before it had been restored. So I sat for four hours, watching a heavily compressed stream of an already low-resolution LaserDisc rip, and was totally mesmerised. The characters were Taiwanese yet I related so heavily to that search for identity and sense of alienation. In the years since, it’s only become more meaningful for me – it’s a profound study of a social ecosystem, our daily lives and its relation to a political situation, the hopes and dreams of youth we have despite it, and the mistakes we make when we believe the world is incomprehensible.” Neil Bahadur
“A film born out of both love for cinema and a deep desire to fully reform it. Yang understood mediality like few others; understood the underlying reasons for social violence and the aimlessness of youth like even fewer. His masterpiece traces a line from cinema past (Ozu Yasujirō) to cinema future (Tsai Mingliang, Lav Diaz).” Flavia Dima
