Hou Hsiao-Hsien: ‘There were a lot of gangs where… | Little White Lies

Interviews

Hou Hsiao-Hsien: There were a lot of gangs where I grew up’

21 Jan 2016

Words by Matt Thrift

A middle-aged Asian man with long black hair, wearing traditional clothing, playing an acoustic guitar against a backdrop of bamboo stalks.
A middle-aged Asian man with long black hair, wearing traditional clothing, playing an acoustic guitar against a backdrop of bamboo stalks.
Meet the Tai­wanese mas­ter who makes gor­geous movies and home-made Samu­rai swords.

The Assas­sin, the lat­est work from Tai­wanese direc­tor Hou Hsiao-Hsien, was a long time in the works, but the wait was worth it. Mourn­ful, exact­ing and mys­te­ri­ous­ly mov­ing, it styl­is­ti­cal­ly slips right into his stun­ning body of work.

Start­ing out in roman­tic melo­dra­mas in the ear­ly 80s, by the end of that decade he was pro­duc­ing some of the most inno­v­a­tive and acclaimed movies of the decade, includ­ing 1985’s A Time to Live, a Time to Die and 1989’s A City of Sad­ness. From there on in, Hou was in the busi­ness of mak­ing great movies, cov­er­ing a swathe of eras, styles, coun­tries and gen­res. This one is his per­son­al take on the mar­tial arts movie.

LWLies: What do you think is the hard­est thing to cap­ture on film?

Hou: The hard­est thing to cap­ture is a true reflec­tion of a character’s feel­ings. That’s why I nev­er rehearse. I just set the scene and put the actors into an envi­ron­ment where they can act uncon­scious­ly, rather than prac­tice and prac­tice, or apply tech­nique. That is not true. It’s not real. Some­times the actors can get there – to those feel­ings – in just one take, some­times not, so I’ll shoot anoth­er scene. I won’t tell the actors if it’s good or not, I’ll just say next scene.’ Then we’ll try it again anoth­er day, to see if the feel­ings I want to cap­ture are ready to come out then.

What are the qual­i­ties you look for in an actor?

With expe­ri­ence, I can tell just through a con­ver­sa­tion whether some­one will make a good actor or not. I first saw Shu Qi in a TV com­mer­cial and set up a meet­ing with her agent. She was real­ly young – ear­ly twen­ties – and the first thing she said to me was, So, I know you’re a famous direc­tor, but…’ It was like she want­ed to chal­lenge me. I found that fas­ci­nat­ing. She was real­ly cool and I want­ed to work with her. On Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo, I hard­ly spoke to her, I just put her in these sit­u­a­tions to see how she’d react, what her instincts were. I want­ed her to show me her essence.

Didn’t you con­sid­er a career as an actor initially?

I’d be too self-con­scious. I’d nev­er make a good actor. You need to reflect char­ac­ter uncon­scious­ly, I’d be too self-aware.

You also talk about your love for singing in Olivi­er Assays’ doc­u­men­tary, HHH – Un Por­trait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The film fin­ish­es with quite a karaōke per­for­mance from you.

I don’t think I’d make a great singer. I entered a singing com­pe­ti­tion at uni­ver­si­ty, but noth­ing came out when I was on stage. I couldn’t make a sound, I was too self-conscious.

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You explic­it­ly quote oth­er film­mak­ers in a num­ber of your films. In 1983’s The Boys from Fengkuei, you fea­ture a scene from Roc­co and his Broth­ers. Was Vis­con­ti a big influ­ence on you then?

I saw Roc­co when it was first released. Boys from Fengkuei came out in the hey­day of Tai­wanese com­mer­cial cin­e­ma. Myself and Edward Yang would spend a lot of time dur­ing that peri­od dis­cussing Ital­ian Neo­re­al­ism, the New Ger­man Cin­e­ma, the French New Wave… We were real­ly influ­enced by these New Cin­e­ma move­ments, which informed Boys from Fengkuei. That scene was shot in Taipei – the inte­ri­ors, I mean – and we asked the cin­e­ma to play some­thing. That was the film they had there that day.

Peo­ple have been talk­ing about The Assas­sin as your first fight film, but there are numer­ous fight scenes through­out your films, espe­cial­ly the auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal ones.

There were a lot of gangs where I grew up. At North Gate, there were the 24 Blue Eagles, and at West Gate there was City Tem­ple, which I belonged to. It was a tra­di­tion in that rur­al area in south­ern Tai­wan, and rival­ries had been devel­op­ing for gen­er­a­tions. My uncle and his friends would be part of one group, while the younger gen­er­a­tion would be part of anoth­er. There was anoth­er gang called 15 Wolves, and the biggest fight was between them and the 24 Blue Eagles, in the park at night. It was bet­ter to fight at night, under the cov­er of dark­ness. We’d fight with home-made samu­rai swords, the eldest at the front with the biggest swords. Us younger ones would be at the back with bricks, but we’d run to the front to throw them. You could see sparks com­ing off the swords when they’d fight. There were a lot of drug issues too, espe­cial­ly among the younger gen­er­a­tion. A lot of my friends died that way.

How did you get away from that environment?

I didn’t grad­u­ate from high school, but I had to do my mil­i­tary ser­vice, which was com­pul­so­ry. Those two years kept me away from the gangs, but when I came back, my father, who worked in Kaoh­si­ung coun­ty gov­ern­ment sent me to the local police sta­tion to be dis­ci­plined. I ran away to Taipei the next day, where I start­ed work­ing on an assem­bly line and tried to pass my uni­ver­si­ty exam, which I just about passed. So I was able to escape by going to art college.

You’ve spo­ken pre­vi­ous­ly of your inter­est in doc­u­ment­ing mas­culin­i­ty in cin­e­ma, and yet so many of your lat­er films – includ­ing The Assas­sin – are female-cen­tric. How did this shift in per­spec­tive come about?

I’d usu­al­ly write a char­ac­ter based on the spe­cif­ic qual­i­ties of the actor, which in lat­er years I’ve found has come more eas­i­ly with women, who have a stronger pres­ence, like Shu Qi. I’d worked with Jack Gao for a long time, focussing on his mas­cu­line qual­i­ties. The young boy in Boys from Fengkuei too, he was fero­cious, and just like his char­ac­ter. Even though he’s from that back­ground, he lacks the kind of fas­ci­nat­ing charm I find in female characters.

So if we ever find our­selves in a sit­u­a­tion where we need a home-made Samu­rai sword, what’s your advice?

When I need­ed one, I’d go to one of the eight alleys near the tem­ple where I grew up. There was an iron shop in one of them, owned by my friend’s father, so we’d look for a long piece of iron in the shape of a sword. Short ones were okay, long ones were bet­ter. Unfor­tu­nate­ly in Tai­wan, there’s no tra­di­tion of mak­ing prop­er samu­rai swords, so we had to make them our­selves with what we found.

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