General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

A City of Sadness (悲情城市)

A City of Sadness (悲情城市) is a 1989 Taiwanese historical drama directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, following a Keelung family through the years between Japan's surrender of Taiwan in 1945 and the Nationalist government's move to Taiwan in 1949. It won the Golden Lion at the 46th Venice Film Festival on 15 September 1989, the first Taiwanese film to take the top prize at one of the three major European festivals, and it was the first Taiwanese film to depict the February 28 Incident, a subject suppressed throughout the martial law period that ended in 1987.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director, year	Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan, 1989; about 157 minutes¹
Top award	Golden Lion, 46th Venice Film Festival, awarded 15 September 1989; first Taiwanese film to win a top prize at a major European festival¹
Historical firsts	First Taiwanese film to depict the February 28 Incident after the 1987 lifting of martial law, and the first shot in Taiwan with synchronized sound recording¹
Languages	Hokkien, Mandarin, Japanese, Shanghainese, and Cantonese¹
Key credits	Screenplay Wu Nien-chen and Chu T'ien-wen; produced by Ch'iu Fu-sheng; cinematography Chen Huai'en³
Box office	Taipei gross of about NT$66 million, then a record for a Taiwanese film¹
Trilogy position	First film of Hou's Taiwan trilogy, followed by The Puppetmaster (1993) and Good Men, Good Women (1995)²

Spoilers

Story and setting

The film opens on 15 August 1945, the day of Japan's surrender, as the eldest of the four Lin sons awaits the birth of his child, named "Light" (光明).¹ The family runs a tavern called "Little Shanghai" in the Keelung area. The eldest son, Wen-hsiung, takes over the business; the second son, Wen-lung, was conscripted as an army doctor for Japan in the South Pacific and his fate is unknown; the third son, Wen-leung, returns from Shanghai, becomes entangled in illicit dealings, is imprisoned under the anti-traitor statute, and comes home mentally damaged.¹^•⁴

The youngest son, Wen-ching, played by Tony Leung, is a deaf-mute photographer who runs a photo studio and befriends Hinoe's sister Hinomi (寬美).¹ When the February 28 Incident breaks out in 1947 and dissenters are hunted under military rule, Wen-ching is arrested after returning from mediation efforts in Taipei; released, he sees fellow prisoners disappear and begins funding an underground organization. Wen-hsiung is killed in the violence, and Wen-ching is later arrested again, leaving the Lin household's women to keep the family going. The story ends in 1949 as the Nationalist government retreats to Taiwan.¹

Production

Origins. The story grew out of Renjian magazine's reporting on Chung Hao-tung, a February 28 victim who was principal of Keelung Middle School, and his wife Chiang Pi-yu; the filmmakers combined this material with interviews, the Luku case from the White Terror period, and Lan Po-chou's reportage The Song of the Covered Wagon (幌馬車之歌). Chu T'ien-wen worked out the scene structure with Hou, and Wu Nien-chen wrote the dialogue.¹ In 1988, with funding from Era Films founder Ch'iu Fu-sheng, a group including P. H. Yu (詹宏志), Chen Kuo-fu, Hou, Edward Yang, Wu Nien-chen, and Chu T'ien-wen founded the "Co-op" film company, and A City of Sadness was its first project.¹

Shoot. Principal photography began on 25 November 1988 before the octagonal pavilion at Jinguashi in the Keelung area. The main locations were Jiufen and Jinguashi, with additional shooting in Beitou in Taipei and Dahu in Miaoli, over a 65-day schedule.¹ The film was the first in Taiwanese cinema to use synchronized sound recording.¹

Casting. Because Tony Leung did not speak Hokkien, Hou redesigned his character as a deaf-mute, modeled on the deaf painter Chen Ting-shih, who lost his hearing in a fall from a tree at age eight; the change added a layer of meaning about voices that cannot be heard.¹ The cast mixed professionals and non-actors: Chen Sung-yung as the eldest brother, Hsin Shu-fen as Hinomi, the glove-puppetry master Li T'ien-lü as the Lin patriarch, and first-time actor Gao Chieh as Wen-leung.¹^•³ Hou, who had established his long-take aesthetic by this point, increasingly abandoned the script on set, describing characters' lives aloud to non-actors and staging fake rehearsals so he could film performers at their most relaxed.¹

Reception and significance

Venice and homecoming. The Golden Lion was announced on the evening of 15 September 1989, Italian time. Taiwan's major newspapers ran the story as front-page news the next morning, the first time a Taiwanese film had done so, and a returning delegation was greeted with coverage comparing the excitement to a Little League world championship.¹ The film also received a UNESCO special award for humanistic spirit at Venice.¹

Box office. According to the 1990 film yearbook of the National Film Archive, the film earned about NT$66 million in Taipei; estimating the island-wide gross at roughly twice that, it set a new box-office record for Taiwanese film. At the then ticket price of about NT$110, the Taipei gross corresponds to roughly 600,000 admissions in a city of about 2.7 million people.¹ The success answered criticism that Taiwan New Cinema films were commercial failures.⁵ During the local elections at the end of 1989, candidates used the film's theme song as campaign music, and the phrase "city of sadness" entered political rhetoric.¹

Golden Horse Awards. At the 26th Golden Horse Awards the film received seven nominations, including Best Feature Film, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay, Editing, Sound, and Cinematography. It won Best Director for Hou and Best Actor for Chen Sung-yung, but lost Best Feature Film to Stanley Kwan's Full Moon in New York, a result that puzzled much of the press, including Kwan himself.¹^•⁶^•¹⁵

Political meaning. Martial law had been lifted in 1987, but Taiwan was not yet fully democratized, and the film was the first work of art to put the February 28 Incident on screen.⁷ Its depiction drew criticism from different political positions, and some commentators questioned Hou's understanding of Taiwanese history, but scholars have credited its representation of the incident with challenging official accounts.⁸^•⁹ The film's multilingual dialogue, including Mandarin, Taigi, Shanghainese, Cantonese, and Japanese, subverted the Mandarin-only arrangement enforced under KMT rule.⁹

Standing. The Golden Lion consolidated the reputation of the Taiwan New Cinema movement that had begun in 1982 and pushed Taiwanese film onto the international festival stage.¹^•¹⁰ The British Film Institute notes that the film ranked =157 in the 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time critics' poll, with votes from critics and directors including Bong Joon-ho.¹¹ The Guardian ranked it sixth among the twenty greatest Golden Lion winners, describing it as a densely textured humanist epic that filters the White Terror years through one family.¹²

Restoration. A 4K digital version, preserving the film-stock look through digital color grading, was re-released in Taiwanese cinemas on 24 February 2023, thirty-four years after the premiere, and a 33rd-anniversary digital premiere in 2022 reunited the surviving crew and cast.¹³^•¹⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026