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Goodbye, Dragon Inn

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Goodbye, Dragon Inn
North American release poster
Chinese不散
Literal meaningNo leaving
Hanyu PinyinBú sàn
Directed byTsai Ming-liang
Written byTsai Ming-liang
Sung Hsi (additional narrative)
Produced byHung-Chih Liang
Vincent Wang
StarringLee Kang-sheng
Chen Shiang-chyi
Kiyonobu Mitamura
CinematographyPen-Jung Liao
Edited byChen Sheng-chang
Distributed byHomegreen Films
Release date
  • December 12, 2003 (2003-12-12)
Running time
81 minutes
CountryTaiwan
LanguagesMandarin
Taiwanese
Box office$1 million

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Chinese: 不散) is a 2003 Taiwanese comedy-drama slow cinema film written and directed by Tsai Ming-liang. It shows the staff and patrons of a dying movie theater, which screens the 1967 wuxia film Dragon Inn as its final performance.

Title

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The Chinese title, "不散", is literally translated as "No leaving" or "Don't scatter." However, the title of the film references the Chinese idiom "不见不散", which is loosely translated as "I'll wait for you" or "I won't leave until I see you." The same year, Tsai produced the film 不见 [zh], which was translated as "The Missing" (not to be confused with the other 2003 film The Missing); Goodbye Dragon Inn actor Lee Kang-sheng directed the film, and Miao Tien appears in both films.[1] In addition, several years before the film's release, a Chinese comedy film was released under the full name "不见不散", which was translated into English as "be there or be square".

Plot

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The Fu He Grand Theater is a run-down movie palace in Taipei. The roof leaks, the bathrooms are dirty, and the theater appears to have only two full-time employees, a male projectionist and a female ticket attendant. It is implied that the theater is primarily known as a gay cruising spot (which it was in real life).[2] On its last day of business, the proprietors choose to screen King Hu's 1967 classic Dragon Inn.[a] Almost nobody is in attendance, and there is no fanfare for the occasion.

The ticket attendant, who walks with a limp, slowly traverses the hallways to give the projectionist a steamed bun. She makes her way to the projection room during the screening, but the projectionist has left. She waits for him and thinks about leaving the bun on the table for him, but eventually takes it and walks away.

A Japanese tourist attempts to cruise in the theater, the men's bathroom, and a corridor. Although he meets several men, none of them are interested. He follows Chen Chao-jung to a storage room and offers him a light for his cigarette. Chen tells him the theater is haunted. The tourist propositions him for sex, but Chen declines.

Although the theater is nearly empty, a female patron still tiptoes around to avoid making unnecessary noise. She moves to sit closer to the tourist, who gave up on cruising and resumed watching the movie. However, she begins making noises while eating, and the tourist hurriedly walks away.

As Dragon Inn builds up to its climax, the film shifts to Miao Tien and Shih Chun [zh], two actors from the original Dragon Inn film, who are watching the final screening. Miao visits with his grandson. Shih's eyes well up with tears.

After the film ends, the ticket attendant dutifully turns on the lights and sweeps the staircase. When she is done, the camera stays running on the empty theater for several minutes.

Miao and Shih meet at the entrance of the theater. They talk about how nobody watches movies or remembers them anymore.

The projectionist and ticket attendant close up the theater for the night. They rewind the film, take out the trash, and empty the rain buckets, even though the theater will never open again. They spend much of this time lost in thought. The ticket attendant stares at a poster saying "Temporarily out of business"[4] and gives her booth one last look before walking away. She leaves the steamed bun for the projectionist. From the shadows, the ticket attendant wistfully watches the projectionist drive away, bun in hand. She then walks home by herself in the rain.

Cast

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Production

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In his prior film, What Time is it There?, Tsai set a scene in the old Fu-Ho theater at the edge of Taipei. Reminded of the super-cinemas and the poetic King Hu films of his youth, he shot a scene in the theater and premiered the film there. After the premiere, Tsai approached the owner to shoot an entire film there, fearing the soon-to-close theater would be lost forever. What was envisioned as a short soon turned into a feature due to the long takes.[5]

Release

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A 4K restoration was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Second Run on November 23, 2020, and digitally by Metrograph on December 18, 2020.[6][7]

Reception

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On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Goodbye, Dragon Inn has an approval rating of 81% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Deliberately paced yet absorbing, Goodbye, Dragon Inn offers an affectionate—and refreshingly unique—look at a fading theater that should strike a chord with cineastes."[8] A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised the film, writing, "Goodbye, Dragon Inn has a quiet, cumulative magic, whose source is hard to identify. Its simple, meticulously composed frames are full of mystery and feeling; it's an action movie that stands perfectly still."[9] J. Hoberman of The Village Voice also liked the film: "And because Tsai is the director, Goodbye, Dragon Inn is also a movie of elegant understatement and considerable formal intelligence."[10]

Tsai considers it one of his best films and chose it as one of his entries of the 10 greatest films of all time in the 2012 Sight & Sound Directors' Poll. Directors Monte Hellman and Apichatpong Weerasethakul also voted for it in that poll.[11] On November 6, 2020, Weerasethakul tweeted, "THE best film of the last 125 years: Goodbye, Dragon Inn."[12] The film won several awards, including the FIPRESCI Prize at the 60th Venice International Film Festival and the Best Feature Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival.[13]

Notes

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  1. ^ In 2016, academic Elizabeth Wijaya visited the now-abandoned theater, which still had props from the film. The props indicated that on the final day of screening, the two films in the theater were Dragon Inn and Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura.[3]

References

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  1. ^ Wijaya, Elizabeth (2021). "Screening Today: The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn". Discourse. 43 (1): 75. doi:10.13110/discourse.43.1.0065. ISSN 1522-5321.
  2. ^ Wijaya, p. 72.
  3. ^ Wijaya, pp. 68, 90-91.
  4. ^ Wijaya, p. 89.
  5. ^ Ming-Liang, Tsai. Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Taiwan: Second Run DVD, 2020. Blu-Ray.
  6. ^ @SecondRunDVD (October 20, 2020). "NEW RELEASE NEWS!! Tsai Ming-Liang's GOODBYE, DRAGON INN on region-free Blu-ray and DVD editions Nov 23rd. Presented from a brand new 4K restoration - pre-order now" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  7. ^ @MetrographNYC (October 27, 2020). "Happy Birthday, Tsai Ming-liang! @MetrographPics will be releasing the new 4K restoration of GOODBYE, DRAGON INN digitally starting 12/18. Stay tuned" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  8. ^ "Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2004)". www.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2019-01-03.
  9. ^ "Inside a Dying Movie House Filled With Lonely Phantoms". The New York Times. 2004-09-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-08-20.
  10. ^ "The Last Picture Show | Village Voice". 7 September 2004. Retrieved 2017-08-20.
  11. ^ "Votes for BU SAN (2003) | BFI". www.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on March 7, 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  12. ^ @kickthemachine (6 November 2020). "THE best film of the past 125 years: Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Get it, project big, and immerse (and cry, sleep, dream,…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  13. ^ IMDb, Bu san, retrieved 2017-08-18
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