Goodbye, Dragon Inn

Like the Royal Theater in The Last Picture Show and the movie house in Cinema Paradiso, the Fu-Ho, a run down Taipei movie palace, is shutting down for good, playing its final film to a motley smattering of spectators. Even as the theater's ill-mannered patrons snack noisily, remove their shoes, and generally treat this temple of cinema like their living room, the sense that moviegoing as a communal experience is slipping away takes on a powerful and painful resonance. Yet Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn is too multifaceted to collapse into a simple valentine to the age of pre-VOD cinephilia. Instead, Ming-liang rises to the narrative challenge, offering a series of sly and delicate character arcs via his signature long, static shots and sparse use of dialogue.