# The Hole (1998 film)
**The Hole** (洞; *Dòng*) is a 1998 Taiwanese-French musical drama directed by [Tsai Ming-liang](https://www.edgepedia.org/tsai-ming-liang), set in a quarantined Taipei apartment building in the last days of 1999, where a hole in the floor connects the apartments of two neighbors who have refused evacuation during a virus outbreak.[1](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-hole) It was Tsai's fourth feature and won the FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/) • [3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 洞 (*Dòng*); Taiwan/France, 1998, directed by Tsai Ming-liang[1](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-hole) |
| Leads | Lee Kang-sheng as the man upstairs and Yang Kuei-mei as the woman downstairs, both unnamed in the film[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/) • [4](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hole_the) |
| Origin | Produced for the French television project "2000, Seen By...", a series in which directors speculated on the new millennium[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) |
| Versions | First broadcast as a 69-minute television version titled *Last Dance*; the longer cut is the director's preferred version[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hole_1998) |
| Music | Five songs by 1950s Hong Kong star Grace Chang: Calypso, Tiger Lady, I Want Your Love, Achoo Cha Cha, and I Don't Care Who You Are[6](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf) |
| Awards | FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes 1998; Golden Hugo for Best Film at Chicago; at the 1999 Singapore International Film Festival, Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress[6](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf) • [7](https://taiwancinema.bamid.gov.tw/Staff/PrintFrameContent?ContentUrl=12436) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and setting
The film is set in the final week of 1999. A mysterious epidemic, spread by cockroaches and causing victims to behave like insects, has ravaged Taiwan, and the government has declared the area a quarantine zone, ordering residents to evacuate and threatening to cut off water supply and garbage collection on January 1, 2000.[4](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hole_the) • [8](https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/the-hole-tsai-ming-liang/12062) Rain falls without end.[1](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-hole)
Two residents of a crumbling apartment building stay behind. The man upstairs (Lee Kang-sheng) runs a nearly customerless grocery store and worries about a stray cat; the woman downstairs (Yang Kuei-mei) hoards toilet paper and spends her days mopping water leaking from the pipes above.[4](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hole_the) • [3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) A plumber, called to fix the leak, cuts a hole through the concrete slab between the two apartments and never returns to finish the job.[8](https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/the-hole-tsai-ming-liang/12062) The hole first becomes an instrument of friction and spying: the man watches his neighbor, vomits into it when drunk, and shimmies his foot and then his leg through it when she is out.[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) As isolation erodes both characters, it becomes their only means of human contact and the channel through which an oblique courtship develops.[8](https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/the-hole-tsai-ming-liang/12062)
## The musical numbers
The film's deadpan plague scenario is punctuated by five lavish fantasy sequences in which Yang lip-syncs songs by Grace Chang, the Shanghai-born star of 1950s Hong Kong musicals, backed by dancers in glamorous costumes.[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) • [6](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf) The numbers never leave the building's hallways and stairwells, and they gradually incorporate the man upstairs, who strikes mid-century poses with his cigarettes.[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) Critics have read them as charting the woman's inner life and as the film's escape from its otherwise dank, claustrophobic millennial unease; the Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls the film one of Tsai's few optimistic depictions of heterosexual relationships.[4](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hole_the) [The Village Voice](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-village-voice)'s Dennis Lim called it "the most memorable fusion of song, dance and weather since Singin' in the Rain."[6](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf)
## Production and versions
In late 1995, French television commissioned directors from ten regions to imagine the year 2000 for the "2000, Seen By..." series; Tsai's film represented Taiwan and Asia, and his immediate instinct was to film a Taipei where the rain never stops.[9](https://www.gvm.com.tw/article/5675) The series also included Hal Hartley's *The Book of Life* and [Don McKellar](https://www.edgepedia.org/don-mckellar)'s *Last Night*.[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review)
The film was first broadcast in a 69-minute television version titled *Last Dance*; the longer theatrical cut is the director's preferred version.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hole_1998) Reported runtimes differ across sources: the Big World Pictures press kit lists 89 minutes,[6](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf) Taiwan's Chinese Taipei Film Archive lists 92,[10](https://license.movie.com.tw/movie/detail?id=158) Film at [Lincoln Center](https://www.edgepedia.org/lincoln-center) lists 93,[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/) and the Guardian, Eye Filmmuseum, and Science Fiction Encyclopedia list 95.[11](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/76417/hole) • [12](https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/the-hole/267307) • [4](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hole_the) The film is in Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/)
## Reception
The film won the FIPRESCI (International Critics') Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Hugo for Best Film at Chicago.[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) • [6](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf) At the 1999 Singapore International Film Festival it took Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress.[7](https://taiwancinema.bamid.gov.tw/Staff/PrintFrameContent?ContentUrl=12436) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 86% Tomatometer from 22 reviews, with a critics consensus that it "finds love and horror in the humdrum rhythm of quarantine life."[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hole_1998)
**Retrospective attention.** For years the film was available only in poor video copies, and it received its first dedicated New York theatrical release on a newly struck 35mm print beginning July 10, 2026, distributed by Big World Pictures.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/) • [13](https://wexarts.org/film-video/hole) Reviewers writing during the COVID-19 pandemic emphasized its prescience: the toilet-paper hoarding, the outbreak labeled "the Taiwan flu," and the social isolation of lockdown life.[3](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review) J. Hoberman of The New York Times wrote that it was "impressive a quarter century ago, it seems even more so today."[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/) Scholarly work has read the film as a millennial text that dialogues with the memory of the ending century while projecting present anxieties onto the symbolic year 2000, proposing a way out through unmediated human connection.[14](https://journals.kpu.ca/index.php/msq/article/view/1923)
## References
1. [The Hole (1998), MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-hole)
2. [The Hole, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hole/)
3. [Sean Burns, "Tsai Ming-Liang's 1998 Romance 'The Hole' Might Be The Best Film About Life Right Now," WBUR, September 11, 2020](https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/09/11/tsai-ming-liang-the-hole-review)
4. ["Hole, The," The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, updated April 23, 2025](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hole_the)
5. [The Hole (1998), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hole_1998)
6. [The Hole (Dong) press kit, Big World Pictures](https://www.bigworldpictures.org/films/thehole/TheHole_presskit.pdf)
7. [Tsai Ming-liang filmography and awards, Taiwan Cinema](https://taiwancinema.bamid.gov.tw/Staff/PrintFrameContent?ContentUrl=12436)
8. [The Hole synopsis, Close-Up Film Centre](https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/films/the-hole-tsai-ming-liang/12062)
9. [蔡明亮：不停下雨的兩千年, 遠見雜誌, February 1999](https://www.gvm.com.tw/article/5675)
10. [洞 The Hole, 中影版權頁](https://license.movie.com.tw/movie/detail?id=158)
11. [The Hole, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/76417/hole)
12. [The Hole, Eye Filmmuseum](https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/the-hole/267307)
13. [The Hole, Wexner Center for the Arts](https://wexarts.org/film-video/hole)
14. [Henrique Brazão, "Touching the Millennium: The Nostalgic Impulse of Tsai Ming-liang's The Hole," Mise-en-scène, Vol. 9 No. 1, 2024](https://journals.kpu.ca/index.php/msq/article/view/1923)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Musical and music films (individual works) › Musical films of the 1990s and 2000s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license