A Confucian Confusion/Mahjong - The Criterion Collection

In this pair of sharp, sprawling satires, one of Taiwan's most celebrated filmmakers, Edward Yang, captures the anything-can-happen mood of Taipei at the end of the twentieth century. Made in between his epic dramas A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong find Yang applying a lighter but no less masterly touch to his explorations of human relationships in an increasingly globalized, hypercapitalistic world. These intricately constructed ensemble comedies - one set in a cutthroat corporate milieu, the other in a shady criminal underworld - reveal the absurdity and cynicism at the heart of modern urban life. A Confucian Confusion: Edward Yang's first foray into comedy may have been a surprising stylistic departure, but in its richly novelistic vision of urban discontent, it is quintessential Yang. This relationship roundelay centres on a coterie of young Taipei professionals whose paths converge at an entertainment company where the boundaries between art and commerce, love and business, have become hopelessly blurred. Evoking the chaos of a city infiltrated by Western chains, logos, and attitudes, A Confucian Confusion is an incisive reflection on the role of traditional values in a materialistic, amoral society. Mahjong: Edward Yang's follow-up to A Confucian Confusion is another dizzying comedy set in a globalized Taipei, but with a darker, more caustic edge. Amid a rapidly changing cityscape, the lives of a disparate group of swindlers, hustlers, gangsters, and expats collide, with a naive French teenager (Virginie Ledoyen) and a sensitive young local (Lawrence Ko) who tries to protect her caught dangerously in the middle. By turns brutal, shocking, tender, and bitingly funny, Mahjong is a dazzling vision of a multicultural Taipei where nearly every relationship has a price and newfound prosperity comes at the expense of the human soul.

Special Features

Interviews: Chen Po-wen (editor)., Excerpts of director Edward Yang speaking after a 1994 screening of 'A Confucian Confusion'; Conversation between Chinese-cultural-studies scholar Michael Berry and film critic Justin Chang; Performance of Yang's 1992 play 'Likely Consequence'; Essay by film programmer and critic Dennis Lim; 1994 director's note on 'A Confucian Confusion'; New cover by Tori Huynh.

Actors: Lawrence Ko, Shu-Chun Ni, Bosen Wang, Richie Li, Danny Deng, Tang Tsung Sheng, Carrie Ng, Chang Chen, Chen Shiang-chyi, Virginie Ledoyen, Wang Wei-ming, Chen Li-Mei

Audio Languages: Mandarin chinese

Duration: 246 minutes

Number of Discs: 2

Subtitle Languages: English

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