Hsiao-hsien Hou's Good Men, Good Women is a beautiful love letter to the vast individuals who lost their lives during the White Terror, where in the 1950s the Taiwanese government began cracking down on suspected communists, caught in the crosshairs of a global political issues which led to to execution of their own citizens. in particular, the story of Chiang Bi-Yu, who suffers a cruel fate along with her husband when all they were trying to do was be patriotic citizens. What makes Good Men, Good Women so distinct is while there is a wide array of films like this though, very few are this unique and have complex structure and elegant direction. The film begins in present day, where actress Liang Ching is starring in a film about Chiang Bi-Yu. Between rehearsals, Liang Ching is being victimized by an anonymous man, who has somehow managed to get his hands on her personal diary, blackmailing her. Giving the viewers very little information from the onset, Good Men Good Woman reveals itself as a story set in three different time periods. The key to the film is centered around Liang Ching's visualization of the film she is going to be starring in, playing out her role as Chiang Bi-Yu in her head, seeing herself in this 1940-1950's movie with vivid detail. Between these two aspects, Hsiao-hsien creates a link between Liang Ching and the character she is playing, which slowly awakens the actress' troubled past, which shares many similarites to the plight of Chiang Bi-Yu. With grace, Hsio-hsien Hou subtely exposes how similar these two women are, capturing the sadness in both of their lives. Hou attempts to link them metaphysically, succeeding for the most part, due to the fact that both lost their husbands and a child, but also in a more nuanced way, like use of juxtaposition that creates a semblence of them being the same person. While very much a tribute film, Good Men Good Women is much more driven by LIang Ching's complicated and seedy past life, being a character that at times may be hard to feel sympathetic for to some viewers. Good Men, Good Women is a precisely directed and photographed film that is not a pessimistic movie at all, being part tribute but more importantly an evocation on human sadness.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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