Goodbye, Dragon Inn [Blu-ray] [2020]

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In an old Taipei movie theatre, on the eve of a ‘temporary closing’, King Hu’s 1967 wuxia classic Dragon Inn plays to a dwindling audience. Also included is a Booklet that features a fascinating essay on the film and its director by Tony Rayns, who also provides some useful background information (that I have cribbed from above) and assessment of Madam Butterfly, plus an appreciation of Goodbye, Dragon Inn by acclaimed filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

This extended sequence reminded me of Shindō Kaneto’s The Naked Island, whose wordless opening half-hour consists solely of a husband and wife carrying water from the mainland to the island on which they have made a home and up difficult pathways to the fields in which their crops grow. That doesn’t mean I’ll like them, but I’ll certainly give the filmmaker credit for trying something that others might not even have considered. In essence, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang’s 2003 feature, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, is a record of the final screening at a large but run-down Taipei cinema before it permanently shuts its doors. For some it definitely will be and indeed has been, at least if the more dismissive and even hostile comments I’ve read online are to be believed.

This moving, deliberately slow paean to the faded splendor of old movie-palaces captures so much of what we love (and love to hate! An expansion Tsai Ming-Laing’s contribution to a project launched at the 2008 Lucca Film Festival in Tuscany in which twenty ‘experimental’ filmmakers were invited to make five-minute shorts to mark 150th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini. Conducted in Taipei City in 2020, this hugely informative and engaging interview with director Tsai Ming-Liang is a first-rate companion to the film itself. Here the decision to hold on a static shot of the tourist and the snack eaters serves a dual purpose, not only capturing the essence of a situation that few serious cinemagoers have not found themselves in a number of times, but also by gracing the situation with an unexpected layer of humour. This is where the lingering shot at the end of Goodbye, Dragon Inn of the empty auditorium really hit home, acting as it did as a reminder that sometimes you really don’t fully appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone.

The community that has outgrown the old Fu Ho cinema seems to tell its patrons, its employees, and even the building itself that all of them really ought to be somewhere else. Its simple, meticulously composed frames are full of mystery and feeling; it's an action movie that stands perfectly still. I will admit that this last bit of information is not revealed by the film itself until its final scene, but I can’t see that doing so here is going to act as a spoiler because it’s been stated in every synopsis I’ve seen, including the one on the cover of this Blu-ray release from Second Run. stereo soundtrack that I’m assuming is the truest to how the film originally played is partnered with a DTS-HD 5. Similarly featured is the handicapped box office cashier (Chen Hsiang-Chyi), who is first seen as her other duties cause her to just miss the arrival of the Japanese tourist and is then observed at length tucking into a sizeable steamed rice bun, a piece of which she decides to give to the projectionist (Tsai regular Lee Kang-Sheng).It’s also worth noting that not a lot happens during the course of that running time, at least in terms of on-screen action, and that the first line of dialogue doesn’t occur until just over 40 minutes into the film. Its lack of narrative and home video aesthetic is likely to infuriate as many as it intrigues, but while I understand how easily it might frustrate, I nonetheless had no problem sticking with it and found myself speculating not just on the possible backstory for the the woman’s current situation, but on the very making of the film itself. Then there’s the editing, which doesn’t so much break with convention as completely disregard it and make up rules of its own. There is, it turns out, a logical explanation for this (though not for how close the tourist gets to the man, which seems to be played more for comic effect) that is revealed only in the film’s touching final scenes.

As we watch the cashier, her right leg supported by a metal brace, slowly limp her way in real time down long corridors and up stairways into what almost feels like the top of the world in the hope of being noticed by a man who seems barely aware of her existence, the impact of her handicap on her work and her personal life really hit home.

Given my initial uncertainty, I was surprised how involved I became in it and ultimately how much I gleaned from what is only suggested by what occurs on screen, and was certainly caught out by its poetic evocation of childhood memories, its moments of almost absurdist humour and its touching final moments. Slarek becomes absorbed by the film's lingering focus on suggestion and small character details and salutes the quality of Second Run's recent Blu-ray release. The very definition of a film that will starkly divide opinion, Goodbye, Dragon Inn is likely to prove frustrating and unsatisfying viewing for some, but if you can adjust to its slow pace and fascination with stillness and small moments, then there’s a good chance it will really work for you. And when filmmakers play with traditional form and structure, this can sometimes result in works that make for challenging viewing, precisely because they do not conform to long-established rules and expectations. As movie houses close and corporations dominate, the art form is at risk of changing beyond recognition.