It's puzzling that I've seen all the feature-length films directed by Tsai Ming-Liang, since there is so much that I find annoying and more that I find dull in all five of them. There is usually something striking and/or intriguing in them, too, though the most recent one, "What Time Is It There?" has only one scene I found interesting. There were more in Tsai's second movie, the first one I saw, "Viva l'amour" (1994). If I'd seen his first one, "Rebels of the Neon God" (1992) first, I probably would have found more of it intriguing than I do after seeing its successors. Having seen five of its them, I register the water motif (the pouring rain and recurrently flooded apartment with footgear floating), the long takes and lack of camera movement (although those in "Neon" are not quite as mind-numbingly protracted as the opening of "What Time Is It There?"), and the not very verbal, not very facially expressive Lee Kang-Sheng riding around on his motor scooter, staring at other people, and writhing alone in bed in his briefs.

There is something of a plot in "Rebels of the Neon God," though it relies on ponderous arbitrariness and coincidence. Before we see Lee Kang-Sheng, we see two petty thieves — Ah-Tze (Chen Chao-Jung) and his friend Ah-Ping (Jen Chang-bin) — inside a phone booth with a monsoon outside. They are there to ron the contents of the coinbox rather than to stay dry. (Having seen five other Tsai movies, I know that coming in out of the rain is not something his characters bother to do, though Taipei rain can be fairly cold.)

This is followed by a long scene of Hsiao-Kang (Lee Kang-sheng) not doing his homework. He instead impales two beetles on a compass, throws them out into the rain, and, when one flies back against the window, pounds against the glass until it breaks and he cuts himself. This provides a reason for his hand to be bandaged through the rest of the movie (in "The River" he could not straighten his head).

The next day Hsiao-Kang cuts cram school (these prepare students for high school or college entrance exams) and sees his motor scooter being towed away. Walking, he is spotted by his Mandarin-speaking father (Tien Miao), a taxi driver, who wants his son to go to a movie with him. They are less stuck in traffic than blocked by Ah-Tze's motorcycle. Ah-Tze does not move when the traffic light turns to green, and then smashes the driver's side mirror of the taxi before zooming off with Ah-Kuei (Wang Yu-Wen) on his motorcycle.

She works (very desultorily) at a roller-skating rink, spends a lot of time on the phone, and can't hold her liquor. She does hand Hsiao-Kang skates, and fixes another skater's skates. (What does it say about a movie when fixing a roller skate is one of the most entertaining moments? That it's as boring as its characters are bored, I think.)

Having disenrolled from cram school without telling his parents (his Taiwanese-speaking mother is something of a religious zealot and has concluded that her son does not get along with his father because he is a reincarnation of Norcha, a rebellious youth who was locked up inside a magical pagoda in Chinese legend), Hsiao-Kang idles around town spending the refunded fees. He spots Ah-Tze with Ah-Ping and Ah-Kuei and begins stalking them, managing to get locked in a place that Ah-Tze with Ah-Ping are burgling. His staying out all night leads to his father barring his return (wet and bedraggled), but Hsiao-Kang hasn't spent all his tuition money on videogames and skating and is able to rent a hotel room. Ah-Tze and Ah-Kuei are shacking up in the same hotel, giving Hsiao-Kang the opportunity to trash Ah-Tze's motor-scooter, and then to drive by as Ah-Tze pushes the inoperable bike to a repair shop the next day.
The thorough trashing of his motorbike is only the start of a really bad day for Ah-Tze, but eventually the camera moves up to contemplate clouds (rain clouds, of course).

Considering the lack of rapport of Hsiao-Kang and his father, I doubt that Hsiao-Kang is bent on revenge. He is as nihilistic as the thieves, and as seemingly dull-witted as Ah-Kuei. Tsai does not put charismatic rebels/delinquents of the James Dean sort on view. Over and over in his body of work, he has put alienated, bored Taiwanese youth (repeatedly Lee Kang-Sheng, who is now directing boring portrayals of bored people just like Tsai's movies in which he has played) plodding through the noise and crowds of Taipei onscreen. If he has something to say about them or about urban life, it is lost on me. Given how little dialogue there is and how trivial it is, I don't think it can have been lost in translation. (Moreover, I've watched all of them with someone who is fluent in both the languages used, and often mixed in them).

It has been claimed that the static camera setups and long takes in Tsai (and Hou Hsiao-Hsien) movies derive from Ozu, but I don't find Ozu movies boring or arbitrary in the way Tsai (and Hou) ones are. Also, Ozu's characters do not seem anesthetized as Tsai's, especially those portrayed in them by Lee Kang-Sheng, do. The takes in "Rebels" are not as dragged-on as those in "What Time," at least.

I'll take the exuberance of Edward Yang's "Yi Yi" over Lee's and Tsai's zombified angst anytime! Or even the same couple (Chen Chao-Jun and Wang Yu-Wen) in my least favorite Ang Lee movie, "Eat Drink Man Woman." (I haven't seen "The Hulk.")




Recommended:
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Viewing Format: DVD