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To mark the centenary of Yasujiro Ozu's birth, Hou Hsiao-Hsien made his own Tokyo story, “Café Lumière,” a film with Hou's individuality, but full of subtle nuances in tribute to the Japanese master. The family drama gets a modern-day setting, with cultural change seen across the generations.

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Yoko (Taiwanese-Japanese musician Yo Hitoto) is a journalist who switches her time between Tokyo and Taiwan. Researching Taiwanese composer Wen-Ye Jiang, she seeks out a cafe the composer frequented when based in Tokyo. And in tribute to Ozu, who favored dialogue over story, that is about that in terms of plot.

Family and its changing nature is a theme hinted at throughout, with Yoko being pregnant by her boyfriend in Taiwan. However, she has a somewhat blasé attitude towards the pregnancy, and indeed her boyfriend; unconcerned as to whether she sees him again,...

To commemorate 100 years since Yasujiro Ozu's birth, Hou's Tokyo story is one that shows the Japanese director was clearly an influential figure in the Taiwanese director's love of cinema. Though while “Café Lumière” features many themes seen throughout Ozu's oeuvre, this is very much a work of Hou.

Much like Hou himself, Yoko (played by Taiwanese-Japanese Yo Hitoto) is visiting Tokyo from Taiwan to research a musician, seeking a café that he used to frequent in the capital. Pregnant by her Taiwanese boyfriend, this causes conflict with her strict, rural father, who feels out of place in the city and with his daughter. In true Ozu style, this is low on plot, with changing family dynamics and female empowerment key themes, with Yoko indifferent to her family and boyfriend's opinions on her pregnancy. She is happy to go it alone. Trains, another Ozu staple, run in the veins of this film,...

The following text is an excerpt from an essay commissioned by the specialist publishing house Hatori Press (Japan) for a tribute to the great critic, scholar and teacher Shigehiko Hasumi on the occasion of his 80th birthday (29 April 2016). Other contributors to this book (slated to appear in both Japanese and English editions) include Pedro Costa, Chris Fujiwara and Richard I. Suchenski. Beyond Prof. Hasumi’s many achievements in criticism and education (he was President of the University of Tokyo between 1997 and 2001), his ‘method,’ his unique way of seeing and speaking about films, has served as an immense inspiration for a generation of directors in Japan including Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Shinji Aoyama. The online magazines Rouge (www.rouge.com.au) and Lola (www.lolajournal.com), co-edited by Martin, provide the best access to Hasumi’s work in English (see references in the notes below).Leos Carax and Shigehiko Hasumi. Photo by Michiko Yoshitake.

Read More: Watch: Cannes-Winning Martial Arts Epic 'The Assassin' Slays with First Teaser Ahead of its screening at the New York Film Festival comes the official U.S. trailer and poster for Hou Hsiao-hsien's elegant martial arts film, "The Assassin."  The Taiwanese director, whose previous films include such contemplative dramas as "Three Times" and "Café Lumière," received the Best Director prize at Cannes for his work on the film, which has since been announced as Taiwan's official Oscar entry. The sumptuous trailer, which gives us a glimpse into the stunning visual language and pulsating energy of the film, promises a world of wuxia film like we have never seen before.  The official synopsis reads, "In 9th-century China, Nie Yinniang is a young woman who was abducted in childhood from the family of a decorated general and raised by a nun who trained her in the martial arts. After 13 years of exile,...

Taiwan’s Hsiao-hsien Hou has often spoken of his admiration for Japanese master Yasujirō Ozu. In the 1993 documentary Talking with Ozu, attached to the Criterion edition of Tokyo Story and featuring such commentators as Claire Denis and Aki Kaurismäki, he compares the man’s work to that of a mathematician: one that observes and studies in a detached, clinical fashion. Often, returning to the same themes of generational conflict within the family unit, but doing so with a profound self-confidence that only lends such reiterations more weight. Hou goes on to state that, while he considers his own “observations and insight into the human condition” to be similarly objective, he really can’t compare. Yet, the similarities are very much evident. Indeed, few batted an eyelid when Ozu’s longtime employer Shochiku, upon commissioning a project for his centenary, chose not a Japanese but Taiwanese director to best capture the spirit of his films.

Hope or despair as one may, the experience of a film festival is a surprise sui generis creation born from a clash-overlap between what an audience member wants to see, what the programmers have chosen, and the confluence between the two via the Gods of Scheduling. In the case of the Vienna International Film Festival—the Viennale—what fell on my first day across the hatchmarks of mine, theirs, and that most frustrating of wild cards was not a single new film, but rather a requirement and an indulgence. The first was Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen, Siegfried and Kriemhild's Revenge (1924), which I had never seen, and the latter was a free slot opened up by an unexpected early arrival, allowing me to also catch Lang's Ministry of Fear (1944), which I had. Twenty years separate these two Fritz Lang films—part of the Vienna Film Museum's complete retrospective of the...

By Ali Naderzad - November 29, 2010

How the mind wanders. I was getting ready to write about the latest Mike Leigh (pictured) movie since “Another Year” is coming out in December and it’s a film that deserves to be talked about. I saw it in good company at the Cannes Festival, and what a charming “Year” that was.

In it, two colleagues have haphazardly managed to keep a friendship going for two decades. Thing is, they’re very different. One is growing ever more desperate as 60 looms large. She’s also unabashedly attracted to her coworker’s son. The other is lucky enough to still live an idyll with her long-time husband.

Today I had a look at the trailer and then posted it in the sidebar. Then I read some of the comments on Youtube. The oft-frenzied feedback shooting in every direction, it’s clever, it’s sometimes a...

SYDNEY -- Acclaimed Japanese director Koreeda Hirokazu, best known for his 2004 hit Nobody Knows, will direct his first historical samurai film for entertainment major Shochiku, the company announced Wednesday. Slated for a spring release, Hana Yori mo Naho is a major departure for Koreeda, who is better known for contemporary documentary-style features. Based on an original story by Koreeda and set in the 17th century, the film stars Junichi Okada, (Tokyo Tower, Fly, Daddy Fly), Rie Miyazawa (The Twilight Samurai), and Tadanobu Asano (Zatoichi, Cafe Lumiere). Producers are Sato Shiho and Enoki Nozomu.

SYDNEY -- Acclaimed Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu, best known for his 2004 hit Nobody Knows, will direct his first historical samurai film for entertainment major Shochiku, the company announced Wednesday. Slated for release next spring, Hana Yori mo Naho is a major departure for Kore-eda, who is better known for contemporary documentary-style features. Based on an original story by Kore-eda and set in the 17th century, the film stars Junichi Okada, (Tokyo Tower, Fly, Daddy Fly), Rie Miyazawa (The Twilight Samurai), and Tadanobu Asano (Zatoichi, Cafe Lumiere). Producers are Sato Shiho and Enoki Nozomu. It's Kore-eda's fifth film. Twentieth Century Fox snapped up remake rights to his second offering, After Life, while his third film, Distance, was In Competition at the Festival de Cannes in 2001.

NDON -- The 24th edition of the Istanbul international film festival bridged Europe and Asia in its novel choice of two films for its top award when it wrapped after a two week run Saturday night in Turkey. The international jury, chaired by New Zealand director Jane Campion, gave the fest's Golden Tulip award jointly to Frederic Fonteyne's La femme de Gilles (Gille's Wife), a Belgium-France-Luxembourg-Italy-Switzerland co-production and to Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's Kohi Jikou (Cafe Lumiere). Exploring themes of fidelity and infidelity close to home, Fonteyne's film about a man who has an affair with his wife's sister and Hsiao-hsien's film about a Japanese-Taiwanese woman who refuses to marry the father of her child, caught the imagination of the jury.

Before Sunset, Richard Linklater's romantic talkfest, was named the year's best film by the sixth annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll. A survey of 94 film critics from throughout the country, the poll also chose Linklater as best director for the Warner Independent Pictures release. The survey also recognized Imelda Staunton for best performance for her work in the drama Vera Drake and Mark Wahlberg for best supporting performance for his role in the comedy I Heart Huckabees. In other categories, the best screenplay award went to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Charlie Kaufman; best documentary, Thom Anderson's Los Angeles Plays Itself; best cinematography, Hero by Christopher Doyle; best first feature, Shane Curruth's Primer; and best undistributed film, Hou Hsiao-hsien's Cafe Lumiere.

Before Sunset, Richard Linklater's romantic talkfest, was named the year's best film by the sixth annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll. A survey of 94 film critics from throughout the country, the poll also chose Linklater as best director for the Warner Independent Pictures release. The survey also recognized Imelda Staunton for best performance for her work in the drama Vera Drake and Mark Wahlberg for best supporting performance for his role in the comedy I Heart Huckabees. In other categories, the best screenplay award went to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Charlie Kaufman; best documentary, Thom Anderson's Los Angeles Plays Itself; best cinematography, Hero by Christopher Doyle; best first feature, Shane Curruth's Primer; and best undistributed film, Hou Hsiao-hsien's Cafe Lumiere.

Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO -- Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's works have always been compared to those of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu. Now, he explicitly makes the connection by directing a Japanese film, set in Tokyo, about an ordinary family. In short, it's not unlike the kind of movies Ozu the elder predecessor used to make. He also dedicated the movie to Ozu.

Cafe Lumiere, like most of Hou's bare, unadorned dramas, is a slow and methodical affair. It's composed of long takes, minimal action and a very detached camera that often looks at the actors from the back or peeks through obscured doors and windows. This is not easy viewing, nor is it meant for the ordinary moviegoer.

Plotwise, little happens. Yoko (Yo Hitoto) is a young writer impregnated by her Taiwanese boyfriend when she was teaching Japanese in Taiwan. However, she doesn't want to marry him so she has returned to Japan to live with her parents, who naturally are worried about her circumstance. But all they do is worry and look pensive. There are no domestic arguments or emotional outbursts in this Tokyo story.

Instead, Yoko spends her time traveling through Tokyo's labyrinthine subway system, researches for an article about a Taiwanese jazz musician, hangs out at a secondhand bookstore run by an equally inert shopkeeper named Hajime (played by Tadanobu Asano who is completely unrecognizable from his famous Ichi the Killer role) and have coffee together. That's all that really occurs in the film.

This poetic portrait of simple Japanese life immerses you in the elegance of the ordinary. It could just as easily be set in Taipei with its very Asian routines: the daily buying and cooking of food, completely absorbing oneself in leisure hobbies and the reserved silence of families accustomed to noncommunicative displays of affection. In fact, the characters seem to be more comfortable talking to each other on the phone than in person.

While cinephiles are sure to pick up on the allusions and stylistic references to Ozu, Cafe Lumiere is in no way meant to imitate. Hou's own profound sense of alienation is very evident in the long stretches of silence. This is not Hou trying to copy Ozu but paying homage and carrying forward the lineage as Ozu's implicit disciple.

Still, this is one of Hou's lesser works. There isn't the historical gravitas or the deeply personal impressionism that mark his Taiwanese stories like City of Sadness or even 2001's disappointing but similarly aimless youth-themed Millennium Mambo. Cafe Lumiere is by Hou's standard a pretty lightweight effort. Just don't confuse lightweight with accessible viewing. The fact is if you can stay awake through the whole 100 minutes, you should get a medal for being a resilient movie diehard.

CAFE LUMIERE

Shochiku Co. ltd/The Asahi Shimbun Company/Sumitomo Corporation/Eisei Gekijo Co. ltd./Imagica Corp.

Credits:

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien

Producers: Hideshi Miyajima, Liao Ching-sung, Ichiro Yamamoto, Fumiko Osaka

Writers: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chu T'ien-wen

Director of Photography: Lee Ping-ping

Editor:Liao Ching-sung

Production Designer: Toshiharu Aida

Sound: Tu Duu-chih

Cast:

Yoko: Yo Hitoto

Hajime: Tadanobu Asano

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 104 minutes...