Hsiao Hsien: Three Times Hou

Hou, H. (2006). Three Times [Motion picture]. Taiwan: CMC Pictures.

Taking place in a Dadaocheng tea house (brothel) during the Japanese occupation, this chapter examines love constrained by rigid social and political duty. The Complexity of Minimalism: Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times three times hou hsiao hsien

If the 1980s films treat time as geography (a house, a village), the 1990s masterpiece Flowers of Shanghai transforms time into . Set in late 19th-century Shanghai’s “flower houses” (exclusive brothels), the film annihilates linear plot. There is no war, no migration, no external event. Instead, time is measured by the slow, ceremonial repetition of opium pipes being lit, tea being poured, silk robes being adjusted, and mahjong tiles being shuffled. Hou, H