The Films of Edward Yang: Mahjong (1996)
April 3 - 15, 2024
A screwball farce about the manipulation and lies baked into modern prosperity, Mahjong centers on a trendy nightspot in Taipei, where Yang orchestrates the elaborate comings and goings of a raft of disparate characters, including a couple of mob enforcers, an American escort service madam, and a young Frenchwoman looking for the British entrepreneur who wooed her in London. New 4K restoration.
Edward Yang’s penultimate film is an acerbic, sprawling tragicomedy, a poison love letter to Taipei as a rising cosmopolis of big money, big dreams, and big cons. Once more focusing on directionless youth, Yang depicts the four immature toughs who share an apartment and, frequently, the same women. Led by the amoral Red Fish (Tang Tsung-sheng), the crew implements a series of swindles and illicit business deals that take advantage of naive foreigners, including a French teenager Marthe (Virginie Ledoyen), looking to reconnect with her older English lover. But when mobsters seek to collect on a debt owed by Red Fish’s ex-criminal father (Kuo-chu Chang), they accidentally abduct crew translator Luen-Luen (Yulun Ke), the only member with scruples and, seemingly, an ounce of compassion for others. In several intertwined tales of greed, violence, and shattered principles, Mahjong examines the ways a city can grow in power and wealth while abandoning its heart and soul.
- Original Language Title: 麻將
- Director: Edward Yang
- Principal Cast: Tang Tsung-sheng, Virginie Ledoyen, Kuo-chu Chang, Yulyn Ke
- Country: Taiwan
- Year: 1996
- Running Time: 121 min.
- Producer: Wei-yen Yu
- Screenplay: Edward yang
- Cinematographers: Longyu Li, Li Yixu
- Editors: Po-Wen Chen
- Music: Forward Records
- Filmography: YI YI, Taipei Story, A Brighter Summer Day
- Language: Mandarin