FiLmS Full: Zui hao de shi guang (2005)

Zui hao de shi guang - Hou Hsiao-hsien (2005)
aka: "Three Times"
DVDRIP | 130 min | MKV-x264 720x384 | 25 fps | AC3 192 kb/s | 1.55 GB
Language: Chinese (Mandarin, Taiwanese) | Subtitles: English - French - Spanish - Italian - Brazilian Portuguese in 5 optional srt files | Genre: Drama - Romance

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Writers: Chu T'ien-wen, Hou Hsiao-hsien
Taiwan - 2005 - color
Cast: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Fang Mei, Su-jen Liao, Mei Di, Shi-Zheng Chen, Lee Pei-Hsuan

The film features three different stories of love and memory through three time periods, 1966, 1911 and 2005. The first, "A Time for Love," hinges on the meeting of soldier boy Chen with pool hall hostess May and his subsequent search for her. The second episode, "A Time for Freedom," deals with a courtesan tending to a Mr. Chang during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. And the third episode, "A Time for Youth," centers on epileptic singer Jing who casually takes up with photographer Zhen while increasingly ignoring her female lover.
Qi Shu and Chen Chang play the two main characters in each story.

In 2006, Jim Jarmusch said: "Hou Hsiao-hsien is not only the crowning jewel of contemporary Taiwanese cinema, but an international treasure. His films are, for me, among the most inspiring of the past thirty years, and his grace and subtlety as a filmmaker remain unrivaled. Film after film, Hou Hsiao-hsien is able to adeptly balance a historical and cultural overview with the smallest, most quiet and intimate details of individual interactions. His narratives can appear offhand and non-dramatic, and yet the structures of the films themselves are all about storytelling and the beauty of its variations. And Hou's camera placement is never less than exquisite.
His film, THREE TIMES, is also a masterpiece. A trilogy of three love stories, Chang Chen and Shu Qi beautifully portray Taiwanese lovers in three distinct time periods: 1966, 1911 and 2005. The first section (in 1966), just on its own, is one of the most perfect pieces of cinema I’ve ever seen. The second, set in a brothel in 1911, remarkably explores dialogue and verbal exchange by almost completely eliminating sound itself, while the final piece leaves us in present-day Taipei — a city of rapidly changing social and physical landscapes where technology has a harsh effect on delicate interpersonal communication. The resonance of these combined stories, their differences and similarities, their quietness and seeming simplicity, left me in a near dream-state - something that only happens to me after the most striking cinematic experiences."