
Tsai Ming-liang
Director · b. 1957 · Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese: 蔡 明亮, Pinyin: Cài Míngliàng; born October 27, 1957) is a Malaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker. He has written and directed 11 feature films and has also directed many short films, television films, documentaries and art installations. Tsai is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese cinema. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous film festival awards.
Movies20
Movie5.5ComedyDramaHsiao-Kang, a Taiwanese film director, travels to the Louvre in Paris, France, to shoot a film that explores the Salomé myth.
Visage
2009 · 26 votes
Movie7.2DocumentaryHistoryA portrait of the legendary actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, icon of the French New Wave and closely linked to the work of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard.
Movie5.2DocumentaryFrench Cinema Mon Amour is an ensemble film in which each contributor brings their own voice, their own particular approach, their culture, and their language to produce a portrait of French cinema.
French Cinema Mon Amour
2015 · 2 votes
Movie6.8DramaThis short by Tsai Ming-liang, completed in 2021, was filmed at "the Dune" in Yilan, Taiwan, where the eight films in his Walker series were being shown.
Wandering
2021 · 4 votes
MovieDocumentaryUnveiling Yasujiro Ozu’s legacy through his personal diaries, letters, and interviews, the documentary delves into his life, creative process, and lasting impact on filmmaking.
The Ozu Diaries
2025
Movie7.5DocumentaryAfter the COVID-19 pandemic, Busan International Film Festival founder Kim Dong-ho, at eighty-five, picks up a camcorder for the first time and decides to make a documentary. His lens turns toward cinemas struggling through the crisis, as beloved theaters vanish amid dwindling audiences. Seeking to reconnect with old friends, "Mr. Kim" — now nearing ninety — travels the world to talk with filmmakers and cinephiles. Through these encounters, he reflects on cinema’s past and future, finding wisdom and resilience in a time of transformation. His journey becomes a meditation on change, memory, and the enduring spirit of film.
Movie7.3DocumentaryLush jungle and a building in ruins are the ideal stage for a film-confession that defies storytelling and goes beyond conversation on cinema. Tsai Ming-Liang and his actor Lee Kang-sheng confess and put on stage a pièce in which attention and slowness are in tune with the rhythm of memory. The unveiling of Tsai Ming-liang’s filmmaking: from Stray Dogs to the most intimate notes of the director-actor relationship.
Movie5.5DocumentaryTV MovieTsai interrupted his pre-production for The River to make this pioneering documentary for Taiwan's nascent AIDS-awareness campaign. Ignoring instructions to 'play down the gay angle', he centres the film on his own very candid conversations with two HIV+ young men. Sadly the identities of the interviewees have to be concealed, and so the freewheeling camerawork focuses most often on Tsai himself; but the sense of rapport between the director and his 'new friends' is palpable and very moving, even to Western viewers already only too familiar with these issues.
Movie6.6DocumentaryComposed of a series of portrait shots of mostly anonymous individuals, filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang's digital experiment turns the human face into a subject of dramatic intrigue.
Movie7.1DocumentaryWith Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy.
Movie5.7DocumentaryA behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Ming-liang Tsai’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone.
Sleeping on Dark Waters
2008 · 3 votes
MovieDocumentaryThe title of the François Lunel film is the Buddhist proverb concluding by: "all is but illusion". His movie draws the Tsai Ming-Liang's face during the shooting of his movie Visage, which itself is also a movie within a movie.
Movie6.8ComedyDramaTaipei 24H divides 24 hours in Taipei into 8 shorts. It opens with Cheng Fen-fen's upbeat and comedic "Share the Morning", and ends with Lee Kang-sheng running the final leg of this relay with "Remembrance" at 4am. Well-known director Tsai Ming-liang makes a rare appearance visiting a late night coffee shop. Taipei 24H is a contemporary urban chronicle of a city rarely at sleep.
Movie10.0TV MovieDocumentaryDocumentary about the work of Nouvelle Vague actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, with interview clips, film clips and contributions from directors and actors he has worked with.
Léaud l'unique
2001 · 1 votes
Movie5.5DocumentaryAn exploration of Chinese cinema and its relationships with gender and sexuality, which the film argues has been more frankly and provocatively explored than in any other national cinema. Utilizing both film excerpts and interviews with many leading directors and academics, the film examines topics such as male bonding in kung fu movies, depictions of same-sex bonding and physical intimacy, the emphasis on women's grievances in melodramas, and the career of Yam Kim-Fai, a Hong Kong actress who spent her life portraying men on and off the screen.
MovieDocumentary"For reasons of health, Lee Kang-sheng and I moved to the mountains. We don't have any neighbors. Our house is part of a row of dilapidated houses. I love these abandoned houses. I often walk around in them casually. I think they are beautiful. I said to Lee Kang-sheng: we don't have to go elsewhere to make films anymore. I'll make all my remaining films right here. I got some old chairs and some of my paintings and arranged them in these abandoned houses. And thus, this film was made." Tsai Ming-liang
MovieDocumentarySix authorities of cinema describe their approach to transcendence, mysticism, spirituality and life after dead.
Wiara
2018
Movie6.0DocumentaryRichly illustrated with film clips and interviews, OUR TIME, OUR STORY tells the still-evolving story of the Taiwanese "new wave," from its rise in the early 1980s, as the island was democratizing after decades under martial law, through growing international recognition and domestic debate in the 1990s. Spearheaded in its early years by such filmmakers as Edward Yang, Ko I-cheng, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Wan Jen, the movement revitalized Taiwan cinema through low-budget experiments that emphasized personal stories, political reflection and stylistic invention. Said filmmakers, writers and actors like Wu Nien-jen and Sylvia Chang, even "second wave" directors Tsai Ming-liang and Lin Cheng-sheng provide fond reminiscences and retrospective insights in this compelling account of one of the most distinctive national cinemas of the last quarter-century.
MovieDocumentaryHuman shortcomings in the pursuit of an idol. Two film school students travel to interview Taiwanese film director Tsai Ming-liang and actor Lee Kang-sheng in Oslo.
Looking for Tsai
2002
Movie6.3DocumentaryA contemplative trip down memory lane with one of the leading voices of the Second New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema. Saw Tiong Guan clearly established a very personal bond with his subject, and also found many of Tsai Ming-liang’s colleagues prepared to complete this portrait of a quiet yet outspoken artist.
Series2
TV9.0Talk ShowThe Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards (Chinese: 台北金馬影展; pinyin: Táiběi Jīnmǎ Yǐngzhǎn; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-pak Kim-má iáⁿ-tián) is a film festival and awards ceremony held annually in Taiwan. It was founded in 1962 by the Government Information Office of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The awards ceremony is usually held in November or December in Taipei, although the event has also been held in other locations in Taiwan in recent times
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