Search - Goodbye South, Goodbye on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Movie Release: 1996 DVD Release: 10/23/2001 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: Taiwanese Subtitles: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 52 mins Studio: Fox Lorber Members Wishing: 2 Genres: Drama, Crime Drama

After spending much of the decade making films about Taiwan's complex and troubled history, Hou Hsiao Hsien turns his attention to its money-obsessed present with this gangster drama. Tattooed mobster, Kao (Jack Kao), and his quick-tempered, aptly named protégé, Flathead (Lim Giong), along with their girlfriends, Ying (Hsu Kuei-ying) and Pretzel (Annie Shizuka Inoh), are desperately trying to make it big. Their master plan is open a disco in Shanghai, but that scheme seems less and less likely with each call they get from their cell phone. Corrupt mainland potentates want a king's ransom in kickbacks while Pretzel racked up a king's ransom of debt herself at the mahjong table, prompting her to make a half-hearted suicide attempt. To make ends meet, these would-be entrepreneurs make a stab at swindling the government over swine -- selling sows when they are supposed to be the more valuable studs. They wine and dine the farmers in rural backwater Chiayi only to get cut out of the deal and kidnapped by the corrupt police. This film was dubbed of the ten best films of the 1990s by numerous critics, including Susan Sontag. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Jack Kao - Kao
Hsu Kuei-ying - Ying
Lim Giong - Flathead