Goodbye South, Goodbye
{{Infobox film
| name = Goodbye South, Goodbye
| image = Goodbye south goodbye.jpg
| native_name = {{Infobox Chinese/Chinese|child=yes|hide=no|header=none|t=南國再見,南國|s =南国再见,南国|l=Goodbye South, Goodbye|p=Nánguó zàijiàn, nánguó}}
| caption = DVD Cover
| director = Hou Hsiao-hsien
| producer = Katsuhiro Mizuno
Shozo Ichiyama
King Jieh-wen
Huang Chong
Ben Hsieh
| screenplay = Chu T’ien-wen
| story = Jack Kao
King Jieh-Wen
| narrator =
| starring = Jack Kao
Lim Giong
Annie Shizuka Inoh
Hsi Hsiang
Hsu Kuei-Ying
| music = Lim Giong
Summer Lei
L.T.K.
| cinematography = Mark Lee Ping Bin
Chen Hwai-en
| editing = Liao Ching-Song
| studio = 3H Films
Team Okuyama
| distributor =
| released = {{Film date|1996|5|12|Cannes|df=y}}
| runtime = 116 minutes
| country = Taiwan
Japan
| budget =
}}
Goodbye South, Goodbye is a 1996 Taiwanese drama film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. The film had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on 12 May 1996.
Plot
Gao (Jack Kao) rides the train to Pinghsi to set up a 10-day gambling den with his friend Hsi (Hsi Hsiang). He takes his acolyte Flatty (Lim Giong) and Pretzel (Annie Shizuka Inoh), Flatty's girlfriend, who works part-time in a night club. Gao's girlfriend Ying (Hsu Kuei-Ying) works in the same night club as Pretzel and doesn't like the people around Gao, finding them dangerous. Gao has already made a deal with Hsi to invest in a nightclub in Shanghai, but Ying doesn't want him to go. Instead, she wants him to stay in Taiwan to open a restaurant. A succession of get-rich-quick schemes leads them to the brink of disaster. Throughout the course of the film the unsavory alliance between the underworld and the political elite emerges.
Cast
- Jack Kao as Gao
- Lim Giong as Flat Head
- Annie Shizuka Inoh as Pretzel
- Hsi Hsiang as Hsi
- Hsu Kuei-Ying as Ying
- Lei Ming as Gao's father
- Lien Pi-tung as Tung
- Kao Ming as Ming
- Vicky Wei as Hui
Production
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack was released in Taiwan by Magic Stone in 1996,{{cite web|title=Various – 世界毀滅之前 南國再見 , 南國|url=https://www.discogs.com/Various-%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E6%AF%80%E6%BB%85%E4%B9%8B%E5%89%8D-%E5%8D%97%E5%9C%8B%E5%86%8D%E8%A6%8B-%E5%8D%97%E5%9C%8B/release/9586243|website=Discogs|publisher=Zink Media, Inc.|accessdate=4 July 2017}} as well as in Japan by Soundtrack Listeners Communications on March 21, 1997.{{cite web|title=Various – 憂鬱な楽園|url=https://www.discogs.com/Various-%E6%86%82%E9%AC%B1%E3%81%AA%E6%A5%BD%E5%9C%92/release/2007123|website=Discogs|publisher=Zink Media, Inc.|accessdate=4 July 2017}}
Reception
Goodbye South, Goodbye was entered into the 1996 Cannes Film Festival,{{cite web|url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4687/year/1996.html|title=Festival de Cannes: Goodbye South, Goodbye|accessdate=18 September 2009|work=festival-cannes.com|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121006022244/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4687/year/1996.html|archivedate=6 October 2012}} but lost to Secrets & Lies.
=Critical response=
The film was chosen along with The Bridges of Madison County and Carlito's Way as the best film of the 1990s by Cahiers du cinéma.{{Cite book|last1=Coleman|first1=Lindsay|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8z2kDQAAQBAJ&dq=Goodbye+South+Goodbye+cahiers+du+cinema&pg=PA139|title=Transnational Cinematography Studies|last2=Miyao|first2=Daisuke|last3=Schaefer|first3=Roberto|date=2016-12-27|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=978-1-4985-2428-5|pages=139|language=en}} Director Luca Guadagnino also listed it as one of his 10 favorite films in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll.{{Cite web|title=Luca Guadagnino {{!}} BFI|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/1039|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507192759/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/1039|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 7, 2016|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www2.bfi.org.uk}}
Analysis
A retrospective review explained: {{blockquote|Goodbye South, Goodbye was the first present-day-set film Hou made since Daughter of the Nile, nine years earlier. (Good Men, Good Women, made before Goodbye South, Goodbye, partly took place in the past.) In two movies since then—Millennium Mambo and Three Times—Hou has cast a sad-eyed gaze upon modern Taiwan. In all of them, Taiwanese youth are depicted as listless wastrels, addicted to distraction and unmoored from their past. His long takes don’t capture time spent so much as time squandered.{{Cite web |title=Goodbye South, Goodbye |url=https://reverseshot.org/symposiums/entry/608/goodbye_south_goodbye |access-date=2023-06-27 |website=Reverse Shot |language=en}}}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb title|0117151|Goodbye, South, Goodbye}}
- {{Rotten Tomatoes|goodbye_south_goodbye}}
{{Hou Hsiao-hsien}}
Category:1996 crime drama films
Category:Taiwanese crime drama films
Category:Hokkien-language films
Category:1990s Mandarin-language films
Category:Films directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien