Ni na bian ji dian (What Time Is It Over There?) (2001)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 50
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 8
Though it requires patience to view, What Time Is It There?'s exploration of loneliness is both elegant and haunting.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 2
Though it requires patience to view, What Time Is It There?'s exploration of loneliness is both elegant and haunting.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 3,505
Movie Info
Master Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang directs this look at three people looking for human connection. Hsiao-kang (Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng) is a young man who sells watches from a briefcase in front of Taipei's train station. When his father (Mio Tien) suddenly dies at the beginning of the film, it sends Hsiao-kang and his mother, Lu, on two radically different trajectories. His grieving mother becomes obsessed with the return of her dead husband's spirit. Hsiao-kang starts to urinate
May 15, 2001 Wide
Aug 20, 2002
Winstar Cinemas
Cast
-
Kang-sheng Lee
Hsiao-kang -
Shiang-chyi Chen
Shiang-chyi -
Tien Miao
Father -
Cecilia Yip
Hong Kong Girl -
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All Critics (58) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (8) | DVD (4)
While its careful pace and seemingly opaque story may not satisfy every moviegoer's appetite, the film's final scene is soaringly, transparently moving.
Top CriticTsai's confidence in the deep power of silence drives home the film's inner convictions. Its surface works coolly, intriguingly and, happily, feebly in opposition to the heart of the matter.
At times, Tsai's approach makes viewing this film like watching paint dry, but what a sublime design it makes.
Alternates between deadpan comedy and heartbreaking loneliness and isn't afraid to provoke introspection in both its characters and its audience.
Mr. Tsai is a very original artist in his medium, and What Time Is It There? should be seen at the very least for its spasms of absurdist humor.
What Time Is It There? is not easy. It haunts you, you can't forget it, you admire its conception and are able to resolve some of the confusions you had while watching it.
The film's understated humor and relatable character's steer us towards feelings of compassion and understanding, rather than pity.
Wise and deadpan humorous.
A funny and moving meditation on yearning, mourning and the vagaries of time.
Tsai may be ploughing the same furrow once too often.
If you've the patience, there are great rewards here.
The careful compositions in the Taiwanese What Time Is It There? give us plenty of time to search for meaning and to wonder what the movie is trying to say.
Has moments of quiet power and others of almost slapstick charm, and it's so elegantly fashioned that it's difficult to take one's eyes from the screen.
His best film remains his shortest, The Hole, which makes many of the points that this film does but feels less repetitive.
Tsai convincingly paints a specifically urban sense of disassociation here.
Inherently caustic and oddly whimsical, the film chimes in on the grieving process and strangely draws the audience into the unexplainable pain and eccentricities that are attached to the concept of loss.
...the gentle melding of drama and comedy makes "What Time Is It There?" something the true film buff will enjoy.
an Asian film that incarnates Brazilian saudade
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Movie: ID: 20706 Title: Ni na bian ji dian (What Time Is It Over There?) Release Date: 2001-05-15 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 6 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- What Time Is It There? (Ni neibian jidian) (DE)
- What Time Is It There? (UK)
This absolutely great film also brings an homage to Truffaut and a small part of Jean-Pierre Léaud. You don´t need to know The 400 blows, but if you do, you will definitely have another view of "What Time Is It There?".