(Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2001, Taiwan/France, 101 minutes)

New 4K restoration!

Returning to youth culture for the first time since Daughter of the Nile, and in the process making a more freewheeling and modern-feeling film than those he was then known for, director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo finds a bar hostess named Vicky (Chinese superstar Shu Qi, in her first role of now four for Hou) circa Y2K, trying and failing to remove herself from the life of her layabout boyfriend Hao-Hao (Chun-hao Tuan). Featuring some of the best cinematography of, well, the millennium, courtesy of frequent Hou collaborator Mark Lee Ping-bin (In the Mood for Love), who has said that he shot this film on 35mm with the intention of making it look like it was shot on digital. A favorite among the Webster Film Series community for years, we last ran Millennium Mambo in February 2019, at the time from an archival 35mm print. So what does a film shot on 35mm with an intention of looking digital, then receiving a 4K restoration 21 years later, look like? We’ll see, but we’re expecting nothing short of stunning.

In Mandarin with English subtitles.