An Unfolding Horizon
International filmmaker’s best works brought to San Francisco
By Justin Lowe

Widely considered to be Taiwan’s preeminent living film director and chronicler of contemporary culture, Hou Hsiao-Hsien remains little known in the United States, although that situation is slowly beginning to change.

Hou’s films have been increasingly exhibited internationally since he won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1989 for City of Sadness and his productions have screened regularly at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The San Francisco Film Society and the Asian Art Museum have brought an unprecedented seven-film retrospective of Hou’s work to the museum, which began Jan. 6.

The series, An Unfolding Horizon: The Films of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, includes earlier features, such as A Time to Live and a Time to Die and Dust in the Wind, chronicling Taiwan’s social and industrial transition since its 1949 break with Mainland China, as well as more recent productions.

Hou is perhaps best known to international audiences for 1996’s underworld saga Goodbye South, Goodbye, his most contemporary production to date before returning to historical dramas in 1998 with Flowers of Shanghai, depicting the cloistered world of privileged courtesans in 1890s Shanghai -- a sell-out at the 1999 SFIFF. The series also includes A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, an affectionate documentary by French director Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep, Late August, Early September).

The Hou Hsiao-Hsien series, in Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles, shows Friday through Sunday at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Call 415/379-8879 for ticket and programming information or visit http://www.sfiff.org on the Internet. One dollar of each admission will be donated to the American Red Cross International Response Fund for Taiwan Earthquake Relief.