Tsai Ming-liang

Ming-liang Tsai
Born	(1957-10-27) 27 October 1957 Kuching, Crown Colony of Sarawak
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1989–present
Awards Golden Horse Awards Best Director 1994 – Vive L'Amour 2013 – Jiao You (Stray Dogs) Special Jury Award 2001 – What Time Is It There? Other awards Golden Lion 1994 – Vive L'Amour

Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese: 蔡明亮; pinyin: Cài Míngliàng) (born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian Chinese and one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese Cinema, along with earlier contemporaries such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous film festival awards.

Early life

Tsai was born in Malaysia of Chinese ethnic background and spent his first 20 years of his life in Kuching, Sarawak, after which he moved to Taipei, Taiwan. This, he says, had "a huge impact on [his] mind and psyche," perhaps later mirrored in his films. "Even today," says Tsai, "I feel I belong neither to Taiwan nor to Malaysia. In a sense, I can go anywhere I want and fit in, but I never feel that sense of belonging."^[1]

He graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Culture University of Taiwan in 1982 and worked as a theatrical producer, screenwriter, and television director in Hong Kong.

Career

Tsai's film honours include a Golden Lion (best picture) for Vive L'Amour at the Venice Film Festival in 1994; the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize for The River at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival;^[2] the FIPRESCI award for The Hole at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival;^[3] and the Alfred Bauer Prize and Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement for The Wayward Cloud at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1995, he was a member of the jury at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival.^[4]

All of his feature films have starred Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng.

The Malaysian Censorship Board on 4 March 2007 decided to ban Tsai's latest film shot in Malaysia, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, based on 18 counts of incidents shown in the film depicting the country "in a bad light" for cultural, ethical, and racial reasons. However, they later allowed the film to be screened in the country after Tsai agreed to censor parts of the film according to the requirements of the Censorship Board.^[5]

In 2003, he was voted by UK newspaper The Guardian as No. 18 of the 40 best directors in the world.

Filmography

Features

• Rebels of the Neon God (1992)
• Vive l'Amour (1994)
• The River (1997)
• The Hole (1998)
• What Time Is It There? (2001)
• Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
• The Wayward Cloud (2005)^[6]
• I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)
• Visage (Face) (2009)^[7]
• Jiaoyou (Stray Dogs) (2013)^[8][9]

Shorts and segments

• A Conversation with God (2001)
• The Skywalk Is Gone (2002)
• Welcome to São Paulo (2004) – "Aquarium" segment
• To Each His Own Cinema (2007) – "It's a Dream" segment
• Hu die fu ren (Madame Butterfly) (2008) – part of the Lucca Film Festival project "Twenty Puccini"^{[10][11][12][13]}
• Beautiful 2012 (2012) – "Walker" segment^[14][15][16]
• No Form (2012)^[17]
• Jīngāng Jīng (Diamond sutra) / Meng you (Sleepwalk) (2012)^[18][19]
• Letters from the South (2013) – "Walking on Water" segment^[20][21][22]
• Xi You (Journey to the West) (2014)^[23]

Telefilms

• Endless Love (1989)
• The Happy Weaver (1989)
• Far Away (1989)
• All Corners of the World (1989)
• Li Hsiang's Love Line (1990)
• My Name is Mary (1990)
• Ah-Hsiung's First Love (1990)
• Give Me a Home (1991)
• Boys (1991)
• Hsio Yueh's Dowry (1991)
• My New Friends (1995)

References

External links

• Tsai Ming-liang at the Internet Movie Database
• Tsai Ming-liang at Strictly Film School
• AV Club interview
• Asia Pacific Arts interview
• Tsai Ming-liang on Tsai Ming-liang at Asia Society