The President´s Last Bang

Shiang-shyi returns from Paris to Taiwan where she coincidentally meets former watch salesman Hsiao-kang and the two start a relationship. What Shiang-shyi doesn’t know is that Hsiao-kang is a porno actor, starring in movies being made in the apartment above hers. At the same time Taiwan suffers from a terrible lack of water and the search for water becomes Shiang-shyi’s main objective. The drought is truly a metaphor for the characters lack of love and as usual when it comes to director Tsai Ming-liang’s films the central themes are alienation, people having troubles connecting with each other and loneliness. There are probably not more than 15 lines spoken through out the film and its fantastic to watch the relation between the two main characters grow with out any verbal communication. The film also contains a number of chirpy musical acts with Chinese pop songs from the 60s all with lavish pornographic themes, which are contrasted to the mechanical scenes from the porn studios.The director won a silver bear for outstanding artistic achievement and this year’s Berlinale and the film was nominated for a golden bear. JOHAN THORNTON

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Orig. titel
Geuddae Geusaramdeul: Medverkande
Jae-ho Song, Suk-kyu Han, Yun-shik Baek: Producent
Shim Jae Myung & Shin Chul: Manus
Im Sang-soo: Foto
Pen-jung Liao: Musik
KIm Hong jib: Talat språk
Korean