Cover Tsai Ming-liang (top) and Wu Kang-sheng performing ‘The Monk from Tang Dynasty’ at Tai Kwun (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
Tsai Ming-liang (top) and Wu Kang-sheng performing ‘The Monk from Tang Dynasty’ at Tai Kwun (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
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Taiwan-based Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang is shaking up Asian cinema with his ‘strange’ films that scrutinise contemporary human experiences
A bald man dressed in a bright red cowl is asleep on the ground in the middle of the busy city. Suddenly, he wakes up, rises and takes a few slow steps before returning to his supine slumber. He is seemingly oblivious to both the passing of time and the flood of curious visitors who pass him by, some of them stopping to stare and take pictures before moving on.
This “monk” was in fact Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng in a performance called The Monk from Tang Dynasty, created by his creative partner Tsai Ming-liang, and performed in late March at Hong Kong cultural hub Tai Kwun. Tsai is a “Second New Wave” director of Taiwanese cinema whose unconventional filmmaking methods have shaken up how Asian cinema presents city life and human emotions since the late 1980s. His inventiveness can be seen in his bold cinematic language—intentionally excluding dialogue from his works, using extreme close-ups and long shots, and telling a story without a plot—which has earned him such prestigious awards as a Golden Lion, a Cannes Grand Jury Prize, a Silver Bear and the title of Asian Filmmaker of the Year at Busan International Film Festival.
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Above A still from “Abiding Nowhere” (2024) (Photo: courtesy of Claude Wong)
A still from “Abiding Nowhere” (2024) (Photo: courtesy of Claude Wong)
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Tsai’s latest film project, Abiding Nowhere (2024), which was the basis for the Tai Kwun live performance, continues in this vein of experimentation. The film is the tenth instalment of his ongoing Walker film series that started in 2011, in which Lee plays the same slow-moving monk Kang in Taipei, Hong Kong, Marseille, Tokyo and Paris. When the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art in the US was celebrating its centennial last year, Tom Vick, the curator of film at the museum, was so impressed by Tsai’s practice that he commissioned the director to create Abiding Nowhere in the countryside and city centre of Washington DC.
Tsai’s films can be a bit odd, but behind that strangeness is a message, an observation or a social comment. Take Walker as an example: “Kang-sheng’s slowness suggests a sense of rebellion against the contemporary world that’s pursuing speed. It’s a great contrast to the [sight of ] people walking by him in the city,” Tsai explains. He first collaborated with Lee in 2011 when he directed a play called Only You, with Lee playing the lead. “I found Kang-sheng’s walking beautiful and I wanted to preserve the sight on film. Then I thought to myself, ‘It would be a great idea if he could walk around the world.’”
Tsai, who is a Buddhist, reinterpreted Lee’s slow pace of walking as a contemporary version of The Journey to the West, one of the four great classical Chinese novels, published in the 16th century. It details Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s travels from Xi’an in China to the “western regions” of Central Asia and India to obtain sutras or sacred texts. “I’m touched by what Xuanzang does. He had nothing but an old horse to take him across the desert and a simple goal with which he overcame the fear of death. He was determined to get the sacred texts to enlighten people on the understanding of life,” Tsai says. “This spirit and determination moved me; it’s something I cannot find in contemporary times.”
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Above Tom Vick (Photo: courtesy of Tom Vick)
Tom Vick (Photo: courtesy of Tom Vick)
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Adapting this legend to Walker, Tsai casts Lee as Kang, a monk on a meditative journey to explore the human spirit in contemporary times. In the 79-minute, dialogue-free Abiding Nowhere, for example, Lee’s movements are so still and quiet that it is as if he is the background to the rivers flowing around him, the sounds of birds chirping and the city life that’s going on. “We lead a fast-paced life these days and we’re blinded by technology and a materialistic, convenient life,” Tsai says. “Shouldn’t we slow down to enjoy this world and appreciate its people and landscape?”
As well as commenting on the contemporary approach to life, Tsai is also on a mission to change the cinema experience. “A lot of times, [commercial] movies overwhelm you with a lot of information, be that the plot or [visual stimulation], but Walker is stripped to the core,” he says. “Some viewers told me they found the movie experience meditative. I want it to offer a moment of relaxation [when you] allow thoughts to flow freely in your head. I don’t want you to think too much when you watch it, because isn’t the cinema supposed to be a relaxing space?”
It was, ironically, his three decades of making feature films that motivated Tsai to turn towards experimental pieces. In his earlier career, he created movies with a clearer storyline, less abstract visuals and less ambiguous storytelling structures. Some of his most iconic pieces include his crime drama Rebels of the Neon God (1992) and romantic drama Vive l’Amour (1994).
Above A still from “Walker” (2012), shot in Hong Kong (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
Above A still from “Walker” (2012), shot in Hong Kong (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
A still from “Walker” (2012), shot in Hong Kong (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
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But after some time and despite his success, he began to feel that his vision for filmmaking was different from what the commercial market was looking for. “Some of the goals of filmmakers are pretty standard: box office numbers, fame and praise or becoming an idol. There’s nothing wrong with this,” he says, adding that many great commercial directors in Hollywood such as Orson Wells, Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick whose work we still adore today were auteurs with distinctive artistic value.
“But for me, I want to let people see the challenges, beauty and fragility of life through my films. Films are inspired by real life: sometimes they are even more real than reality; at other times, they reveal another side of the world that we live in. When put to good use, [the film is] a tool that can change the world for the better by stimulating us to think: can we not have war? Can we not have hatred? Can we not be greedy?”
Tsai departed from commercial filmmaking and now is unreservedly experimental. In 2013, he made Stray Dogs, a short with almost no dialogue. It shows a homeless single parent in Taipei eking out a living for himself and his children as a walking billboard, standing every day in pouring rain and returning to a rundown flat every night. The 11-minute film is almost painful to watch, as the audience is subjected to the director’s intense portrayal of those who live in poverty.
Above Tsai Ming-liang at work (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
Tsai Ming-liang at work (Photo: courtesy of Tsai Ming-liang)
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In 2018, Tsai shot the documentary short Your Face, for which he transformed Taipei’s Spot Huashan Cinema into an “art gallery”, displaying close-up videos of 13 elderly people as if they were paintings that told the subjects’ life stories.
And in 2020, Tsai released Days, which blurs the boundary between documentary and fiction as he captures the parallel lonely lives of Lee’s monk Kang and Non, a masseur played by Laotian actor Anong Houngheuangsy. Their existences are tied together by a fleeting meeting at a hotel. During the shoot, Lee suffered from an undiagnosed ailment which became part of the plot. He finds comfort and companionship in Non’s massage before the two return to their separate routines. The film, with its homoerotic undertones, highlights the calm and beauty in an ordinary life, even one that is repressed.
The 66-year-old director says his films are inspired by the experiences and emotions at different stages of his life. “My films age. When I was young, I made films about love, passion and social issues. As I grow older, I turn towards my innate feelings; my films are getting more peaceful and simplistic,” he says.
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Above Tsai at work (Photo: courtesy of Claude Wong)
Tsai at work (Photo: courtesy of Claude Wong)
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But he feels making art movies to fill gaps in the industry isn’t enough. “The audience’s taste and habit are nurtured by Hollywood and commercial films; what’s available in the cinema is curated by the government or businessmen. You can only watch movies that are politically correct or those that can sell. You won’t see a ‘strange’ film created with a great degree of individual freedom. In this way, the general public rarely has the chance to be nurtured,” he says. “I have to change the concept of watching films from its root, starting from what is available in the cinema.”
He does this by selling tickets to his movies to university students and members of the public, and then booking cinema houses to screen his films because mainstream cinemas in Taiwan rarely choose to do so. Outside Taiwan, Tsai collaborates with art museums to show his movies. “Art museums are a space to nurture art film audiences because museum visitors’ minds are more open to learning about different artforms,” he says, adding that they’re visited by families and young people, so it’s a great start to nurture the young generation.
With more art museums such as MoMA in New York City, Paris’s Centre Pompidou and Hong Kong’s M+ Cinema setting up their own departments to promote and preserve art films, Tsai feels there’s more freedom and opportunities for newer filmmakers to create works that are less constrained by commercial concerns. “Because of this, I’m optimistic about the future of the cinema,” he says.
As for what’s next, Tsai teases that he has a few ideas: one about his long-time actors; and another about his home, Taipei. He says, “I’m old now. I don’t know how long I can keep on making films. But until my life comes to an end, the Walker series can go on forever. Kangsheng and I haven’t finished walking just yet.”
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
