A City of Sadness is the earliest of the three films in the Hou Hsiao-hsien trilogy we are presenting in this year's festival (see Good Men, Good Women, below, and The Puppetmaster, March 14). It is a testament to a master practitioner of cinema who can deliver magic on screen while also bravely presenting an accounting of Taiwan's history of political repression and exploring the character of his people. "A City of Sadness focuses on one family (old Lin Ah-Lu and his four sons) but rhymes their affairs with the fate of Taiwan at a crucial turning point in its modern history. The action spans the years from 1945 (the end of Japanese colonial period) to 1949 (the Communist takeover of Mainland China and the establishment of Chiang Kai-Shek's government-in-exile in Taiwan). The opposite poles of the Lin family are the eldest son, a gangster,?and the youngest son (played by Tony Leung), who?befriends students of the movement campaigning for Taiwanese independence and self-government. Atthe heart of the film is Chiang Kai-Shek's annihilation of the Independence Movement. The mere mention of these events has long been taboo in Taiwan and Hou is courting controversy by bringing them to light. But the insistence of facing up to an outrage from the past doesn't obscure Hou's characteristic sensitivity to human drama. The film measures crimes in the gangster world against the undercover struggles of the resistance and finds both milieus bursting with stories and incidents to break the heart. -Tony Rayns, Vancouver Film Festival, 1990