Search - Three Times on DVD

A summation.

Craig Keller | Princeton, NJ USA | 10/22/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Whenever someone says a film is "a critic's movie," the charge is tantamount to the admission: "I don't care to 'think'. In fact, I'm so emotionally walled-off -- possibly as a result of exposure to our diseased American popular culture suffocating the global semiosphere 24-7 -- that I refuse to budge that single instant which might allow myself to open up to the possibilities outside of the so-called 'way movies should be', and what all the clip-packages and trailers announce I should expect and join in lauding." Would these same folks (who wear their ignorance like sham folksy wisdom, or the crust of an ersatz salt-of-the-earth set of mores) begrudge a painting for not telling a story, -- insofar as it's at odds with "'mere' illustrations"?

Probably.

Hou's latest film is a masterpiece, something like his seventh consecutive one. It's a triptych of stories (which is to say, of situations, the small moments of love in blossom and struggling against circumstance -- which is all to say: of lives lived) that relates the poignance, quietude, and soul in great love's first 20-something pop. As always, Hou sets his own pace, hypnotic, charged and adrift, and shaded with a nuance that telegraphs its meaning via the mise en scène [ie, staging in the frame space] perhaps moreso than through any dialogue spoken. Here's the same couple, more or less (handsome and sly Chang Chen; Shu Qi, beaming, detached, and opiate-cool, her beauty exploding off the screen), loving each other three different times in different moments in time -- in the 1960s, 1920s, 2000s. This IS cinema mastery, you'll see it when you see it -- but not even to ALLOW oneself to respond on a visceral, never mind intellectual, level to these stories (yes, they're no less stories than those of Annie Proulx) is surely some willful abdication of humanity. In short, 'Three Times' is the languid, slow-boil romance to Wong Kar-wai's feverish romance. Yes, "romance" high and true -- that gesture Hollywood abandoned somewhere along the Gulf+Western pipeline.

A magnificent introduction to Hou Hsiao-hsien's films. Work your way backward from here -- 'Café Lumière,' 'Millennium Mambo,' 'Flowers of Shanghai,' 'Goodbye South, Goodbye,' 'Good Men, Good Women,' then skip the DVD of 'The Puppetmaster' because it's likely botched, lament the absence on DVD of 'City of Sadness' and 'Daughter of the Nile,' and finally move on to the four-film boxset from Taiwan (English subtitles included) of his first four features: 'The Boys from Fengkuei: All the Youthful Days'; 'A Summer at Grandpa's'; 'The Time to Live and the Time to Die' (supreme masterpiece); and 'Dust in the Wind' (masterpiece). This is one of the world's greatest living filmmakers -- and one of the greatest in the history of movies."

Three Times

John Farr | 07/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The brilliance of Hou's magnificently gorgeous meditation on love and longing, of course, is the conceit of using the same two actors in each sequence. And you couldn't ask for better performers than Chang and Shu, who are captivating regardless of the age they're portraying, particularly in the nostalgic, near-wordless "A Time for Love" segment, steeped in a sultry `60s atmosphere. Hou's other brilliant stroke is to make the next part, which unfolds in a brothel during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, a short silent film, with hypnotic music and title cards. Taken as a whole, "Three Times" is nothing short of a rapturous, romantic masterpiece--in triplicate."

Best Foreign Film Of 2006

Jen | 01/21/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I can understand that without certain historical knowledge and an understanding of the current culture of Taiwan, the second and the third piece could be somewhat difficult to related. But the first story is absolutely a masterpiece. It contains minimum plot (if you would call it a plot), minimum dialogue (no more than 10 words in each conversation), yet it makes you fall in love with the characters. Is it possible to blame the critics for calling it anything other than "magic"?
"

Great movie, but not for everyone

Christopher R. Travers | Chelan, WA | 06/13/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is three independent portraits of eras and different aspects of the human condition. The first is set in 1966 and is a portrait of the search for love. The second takes place in 1911 (despite the product description, this seems like a mansion, not a brothel) and tells the story of the need for freedom from a contract of servitude. The final piece demonstrates the heartbreaks and regrets of youth.

Each portrait is a reasonable attempt to match the style of movies of the period in which it is set. For example the 1911 piece is done as a silent movie.

The movie's greatest weakness is also its greatest strength. All of the scenes have a very pedestrian feeling which takes some time to get used to. However, the same slow approach immerses the viewer in the worlds of the characters in a way which other movies do not do.

Also the movie is short on dialog and the focus of the manners and facial expressions of the characters is central.

This is a great movie, but may seem a little slow for some. The acting is superb, as is the directing, etc. But not everyone will enjoy it. However, I would still give this 5 stars. I will probably watch it again and again."