Goodbye, Dragon Inn [Blu-ray] [2020]

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In an old Taipei movie theatre, on the eve of a ‘temporary closing’, King Hu’s 1967 wuxia classic Dragon Inn plays to a dwindling audience. For some it definitely will be and indeed has been, at least if the more dismissive and even hostile comments I’ve read online are to be believed. You see, despite a hesitant start, for me watching Goodbye, Dragon Inn proved an increasingly involving and ultimately seductive experience, as I gradually adjusted to Tsai’s approach and the film’s unhurried pace and found myself oddly intrigued by characters about whom I knew little and situations in which little is explicitly stated. Here the decision to hold on a static shot of the tourist and the snack eaters serves a dual purpose, not only capturing the essence of a situation that few serious cinemagoers have not found themselves in a number of times, but also by gracing the situation with an unexpected layer of humour.

the director-approved 1080p transfer on this Blu-ray has been sourced from a new 4K restoration, and the results are rather splendid, with a nicely balanced contrast range and solid black levels that only soften a tad in some darkest scenes so as not to crush the shadow detail. The very definition of a film that will starkly divide opinion, Goodbye, Dragon Inn is likely to prove frustrating and unsatisfying viewing for some, but if you can adjust to its slow pace and fascination with stillness and small moments, then there’s a good chance it will really work for you. An expansion Tsai Ming-Laing’s contribution to a project launched at the 2008 Lucca Film Festival in Tuscany in which twenty ‘experimental’ filmmakers were invited to make five-minute shorts to mark 150th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini. Goodbye, Dragon Inn ( Chinese: 不散) is a 2003 Taiwanese comedy-drama slow cinema film written and directed by Tsai Ming-liang about a movie theater about to close down and its final screening of the 1967 wuxia film Dragon Inn. This is where the lingering shot at the end of Goodbye, Dragon Inn of the empty auditorium really hit home, acting as it did as a reminder that sometimes you really don’t fully appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone.The movies that played there live on in DVDs and shoebox megaplexes, but their days of playing in grand auditoria to great audiences are largely gone.

Nostalgia for the cinemagoing days of my youth certainly played its part here, but if the film also works for you then the quality of the restoration and transfer and the Tsai Ming-Laing interview make this Second Run Blu-ray an easy recommend. Gven how much of the film takes place in the dark, the clarity of the picture and detail is really impressive. It's as if the theater knows it's done for, resigned to its fate, not yet ready to die, too tired to fight. In the only fast cut sequence in the film, the cashier is momentarily mesmerised by the fighting skills of the on-screen movie’s female action star Shangguan Lingfeng, the rapid back-and-forth cutting between the two hinting at the cashier’s dreams for life that fate has denied her. After the premiere, Tsai approached the owner to shoot an entire film there, fearing the soon-to-close theater would be lost forever.Conducted in Taipei City in 2020, this hugely informative and engaging interview with director Tsai Ming-Liang is a first-rate companion to the film itself. Some will argue that the same could be said for anything approaching a story, at least in the traditional sense. If you watched it and felt nothing but exasperation, as some definitely have, then you’re probably thinking that this would be a good thing.