By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou
Starring: Chun-hao Tuan | Jack Kao | Qi Shu | Yi-Hsuan Chen
Original language title: Qianxi Manbo
Country: france, taiwan
Year: 2004
Running time: 120
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283283/reference
Hilary says: “I was trying to fight it, but I gotta be a contrarian — I thought MILLENNIUM MAMBO was a complete waste of great cinematography. I skipped the discussion afterwards because I had nothing positive to say beyond the cinematography.
“I sensed that it might not have the deepest plot when a comparison to Fox’s latest teen soap, The O.C. was drawn in the intro, but this film only wishes it were as interesting and engaging as your average teen melodrama. I couldn’t sympathize with or relate to any of the characters and felt that I could’ve written the script as I watched it. Ultimately it feels like an excessively long music video.”
Michael says: “Touching on themes of urban alienation and coming-of-age, Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou weaves a subtle story in MILLENNIUM MAMBO. Vicky is a beautiful young woman living a hedonistic life of drugs and dancing in the Taiwan club scene. She’s in a dead-end relationship with Hao Hao, an emotionally abusive young man and she knows it. Somehow she just can’t bring herself to leave, but she proclaims to the audience that after their few thousand dollars of savings runs out, she will leave him for good.
“Vicky’s voice-over narration is interesting, as she’s telling the story from ten years in the future looking back. She speaks of herself in the third person, and her value judgements are fairly neutral. As Vicky’s relationship with Hao Hao deteriorates, she seeks refuge with Jack, who treats Vicky with more care, and whose life is much more structured and orderly, but who has a dangerously shady lifestyle that Vicky doesn’t seem to be totally aware of.
“MILLENNIUM MAMBO is beautifully shot (by Mark Lee Ping Bing of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE fame) and the camera certainly loves lead actress Qi Shu. Never have I seen more smoking in a movie, and each time Vicky lights another cigarette, the camera focuses in on her sensuous mouth exhaling a stream of smoke. The soundtrack of pulsing club music is strong, evoking mood, and the repeated use of one particularly lovely song during Vicky’s happy moments is perfect. Several films sprang to mind for various reasons as I watched MILLENNIUM MAMBO, including Tsai Ming Liang’s WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? and this year’s Chlotrudis nominee, MORVERN CALLER.
“The post-film discussion was fascinating and really helped me to put the pieces of the story together, particularly the timeline of the final twenty minutes of the film. Ned came up with an intriguing hypothesis that really seems to make sense. If Vicky is representative of Taiwan, Hao Hao of China, and Jack of the West, we can see the story in much broader terms. There are several visual clues to point to this possibility, and it really makes the story all that much more fascinating.
“The scenes in the village of Yubaru are gorgeous, with heavy falling snow representing purity. This film is playing at the Brattle in a couple of weekends and I recommend it.” 4 cats
Bruce says: “MILLENIUM MAMBO opens with the camera following Vicky (Qi Shu) as she ambles down a pedestrian walkway crossing a busy freeway. Vicky flirts with the camera in a self assured way. We soon learn the assuredness is strictly veneer. The learning process in this Hou Hsaio-hsien film is a matter of scrambling pieces together. The story of Vicky and her young boyfriend/lover Hao-Hao (Chun-Hao Tuan) tumbles out on the screen with a total lack of conventional narrative.
“Vicky has quit school on the day of her final exam after Hao-Hao tells her ‘you come down from your world to mine.’ Hao-Hao has a fondness for drugs and aspires to being a DJ. Although they break up many times, Hao-Hao stalks Vicky and wears her down until she returns to their troubled nest. At times he rifles through her bag; he questions charges on her phone card. He hits her then is surprised when she is uninterested in lovemaking.
“Vicky meets two Japanese brothers from a remote area of Hokkaido who are temporarily working in Taiwan. They give her their telephone number in Japan, telling her to call them if she is ever in the vicinity. Gorgeous scenes of a snowy wonderland reveal that Vicky does indeed end up ‘in the vicinity’ but it is not until the end of the fill that we learn how or why. What we can assume is that the two brothers in Hokkaido save Vicky’s life, a life that was soon to self-destruct in a haze of drugs and alcohol with a boyfriend stuck to her like glue.
“As much as I liked this film I had great problems with Qi Shu. Throughout most of the film her mouth was stuck in a defiant pout, unattractive and distancing. Only in the scenes of Hokkaido did her mouth relax and seem normal. That probably is the point but Shu is unpleasant to watch. 4 cats”