Product Description

A Japanese tourist takes refuge inside a run-down movie theater and discovers that some of its patrons may actually be ghosts from the film playing on screen. From Tsai Ming-Liang, director of The River and What Time Is It There?.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40406 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-02-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Cantonese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 83 minutes

Customer Reviews

A wonderful film that can test your endurance yet greatly rewards the patient and observant.
I will admit that this film is not for everyone. This is a VERY slow film, there is very little talking, and many shots that linger on what seem at first to be insignificant things. Yes there is no overall plot beyond "the last operating night of a movie theater", but there are many other stories being told within that basic framework. If you actually pay attention to what the film is showing you, you start to see the stories of the people and the place unfold. You start to understand what their lives are, and what the life of the theater is and has been over the years. The place is something more than what it was meant to be. The people are doing more than what they seem to be, or would be expected to be doing in such a place. Today we are so used to listening to a film, and we forget about watching it. Seeing what is happening in the film rather than following the story through what is said in the film. We are so used to having everything laid out for us on a golden platter that we forget about paying attention. We forget how fulfilling it can be to suddenly put two and two together and realize what we are actually seeing, and what it means to everything else we have seen. Silent films, in a much broader and more obvious way forced you to understand the story based on what you saw on screen visually. If you've seen enough silent films you know that the dialog cards were actually often used very sparingly. Entire portions of the dialog would be delivered on screen with only the actors performances revealing what was being said. This film is very much like that only much more subtle, and without even the silent dialog to inform the viewer. You see these events and have to pay close attention and remember things for it to become clear why you are being shown it. But if you have any sort of patience in the end it pays off, and it feels like you have gotten something more meaningful out of this film than just a straight forward happy little story about a once beloved place. You understand the sadness and emptiness that permeates the place and the people in it. It is a very powerful film for anyone with the patience and sense of wonder to actually follow the stories as they slowly and silently unfold.

another pretentious, bored-you-to-death film from the same director
what a torture to watch this deadbeat film. every frame in this movie was just like a picture frozen in time. the screenplay writer/director tried so hard to waste the film as long as they could. they tried to give you a helpless, dreary, melancholy, nostalgic backward of the old time, used a movie they thought representing the golden era of taiwanese wu-xia movies. what we got here were nothing but: the constantly coming and going audience in the theatre, a guy shifted around among seats to look at other viewers who were actually those characters in that movie, all the has-been and the have-been wash-up old timer. what we got here was the camera shot an object or a meaningless character, froze there, shot at them with nothing to tell and nothing to happen; we got the crippled mama-san eating bum, drinking tea, climbing up and down staircases in the theatre doing the meaningless chores, washing her hands in the movie theater's restroom for at least 3 minutes with nothing to tell, then limping around. then back in the showing room, people coming and going, eating, smoking, putting stinking barefeet onto the front seat back, endless guys moving around in the dark, sound track from the screen.....yeah, very deep, very philosophic, got lot things to tell and certainly you understood them all.
this director from taiwan is one of the worst and the most pretentious director who could do nothing but continuously produced absolutely clueless and pointless movies. the only thing he might have achieved was the film manufacturers rally like this customer, because every time he shot a movie, miles of miles film would be bought to fulfill his empty vanity.
strongly recommeded to avoid this movie and all the movies thoughtfully directed by him.

What is wrong with this movie?
Okay. I'll make this short. This movie sucks, big time. I'd rather watch a Sound of thunder 100 times in a row. At least that movie has a plot. Be warned! My family and I left after bearing through the first hour. I'm suprised we lasted that long.