Rebels of the Neon God (1992)

Taiwan | 106 min | NR | DCP | Dir. Tsai Ming-Liang

With an ominous, pulsating, score and lush photography of Taipei’s urban nooks and crannies, “Rebels of the Neon God” is a film that’s as intriguing and strange as its title. The film is about two strangers, Hsiao-Kang and Ah-tze. Ah-Tze who breaks the mirror on Hsiao-Kang’s father’s taxi, resulting in a small scale revenge tale. The rest of the film is about the day-to-day lives of these two men and the environments they inhabit, from a flooding apartment, to an arcade, to the streets of Taipei. The first film by major Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang, take this opportunity to see Big World Picture’s beautiful new DCP restoration of this melancholy, black-and-blue, look at modern city life.

“…buried beneath the gloom and grime is the hopeful belief that a genuine connection between two people, however fleeting, is possible…as close as contemporary filmmaking gets to the essence of poetry” (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Chicago Reader)

Watch the Trailer!