Daughter of the Nile (Film)

1987. Dir: Hou Hsiao-Hsien.


First Hou film to take place in Taipei.



"Hou does everything to make the film as far from a disposable, star-geared, impersonal commodity as possible. Employing his trademark long shots and long takes, Hou disinvests the viewer of comfortable, familiar entryways into the emotional and psychological lives of his characters even as he tailors the “teen” movie to his social and cultural concerns."

"the motorcycle ride points to those of Goodbye South Goodbye, while a brutal crime perpetrated in front of a static-camera long take would be expanded upon just a film later in City of Sadness"

"Kasman believes Hou’s shift from male protagonists in films set in the past to female protagonists in those taking place in the present comes from a clear “line of thought”: “the opportunities missed by the socially empowered males in the mid-twentieth century have given way to modern, contemporary opportunities similarly being missed by Taiwan’s women. . . . Hou sees these new women—strong-willed, romantic, partially socially conscious and vaguely looking for something to do with their lives—as the hope for dragging Taiwanese society out of the qualms of the modern life.” That Hou associates women with contemporary urban settings isn’t surprising—he’s commented that he believes that the virile, tough men of his youth have slowly died out, and that attitude is reflected in the decentralizing of Hou’s gangsters to the margins of narrative."