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Three Times (2006)
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Reviews Counted: 49
Fresh: 42
Rotten:7
Average Rating: 7.8/10
Consensus: Slowly paced, understated, and exquisitely shot, these are three lovely odes to love and longing.
Theatrical Release:Apr 26, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: The film features three different stories of love and memory through three time periods, 1966, 1911 and 2005. The first, "A Time for Love," hinges on the meeting of soldier boy Chen with pool hall... The film features three different stories of love and memory through three time periods, 1966, 1911 and 2005. The first, "A Time for Love," hinges on the meeting of soldier boy Chen with pool hall hostess May and his subsequent search for her. The second episode, "A Time for Freedom," deals with a courtesan tending to a Mr. Chang during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. And the third episode, "A Time for Youth," centers on epileptic singer Jing who casually takes up with photographer Zhen while increasingly ignoring her female lover. [More]
Starring: Gong Li, Chang Chen
Starring: Gong Li, Chang Chen
Director: Hou Hsiao Hsien
Director: Hou Hsiao Hsien
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Reviews for Three Times
If you are easily lulled into a sensuous rhythm of pure cinematic languor, this will satisfy. If not, you may be banging your head against the back of your seat.
[Hou's] work gains significance due to his specifically tying this theme of love to Taiwan in particular, as opposed to just proposing a general essay on love.
Hou Hsiao Hsien is quite simply one of the world's premier filmmakers yet his films are lucky to play a few festival dates here in the U.S.
A ravishing triptych spanning a century of Taiwanese history, in which love remains eternally elusive.
Carefully crafted and bereft of dialogue, Three Times sets the bar high with its opening salvo but can't sustain the momentum.
Assembles all of the major settings of the last 20 years of Hou's career into a single portmanteau of miscommunication and frustrated ardor.
This is a fascinating exercise in utilising style to make subtle psychological and political statements.
Hsiao-Hsien reinforces his excellent cinematography with a bold use of music, featuring The Platters' Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, but ultimately the running time could have been halved and he would still have made his point.
An emotional journey, a showcase for two fine actors, and a multifaceted picture of love.
The style is pure Hou: richly textured atmosphere, tiptoeing camerawork and long, languorous takes of scenes full of privileged moments of human activity.
A film to get lost in, a fragmentary, impressionistic trilogy of fleeting moments of love that is one of the best films of the year.
Seen in isolation, the first episode has the most satisfying plot and the last the least. But the film's achievement lies mostly in the beautifully articulated similarities and differences among the three.
Three varieties of love: unfulfilled, mercenary, meaningless. All photographed with such visual beauty that watching the movie is like holding your breath so the butterfly won't stir.
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