Millennium Mambo (4K Restoration)
Friday 2 May from 6:05pm to 8:30pm
Sydney Opera House and Taiwan Film Festival in Australia presents Millennium Mambo, Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s dreamlike, neon-filled film newly restored in 4K.
In the future of 2011, Vicky recalls her romances that unfolded a decade ago among the techno-scored neon nightlife of Taipei. Back in 2001, Vicky is a free spirit and party girl working as a hostess at a bar who begins to drift away from her DJ boyfriend towards a suave, sensitive gangster.
Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s follow up to the widely acclaimed Flowers of Shanghai captures the sheer weightlessness, inertia, and amnesia of life in contemporary Taipei. With magnificent cinematography from Mark Lee Ping-bing (In the Mood for Love), the hypnotic narrative focuses on Vicky as she floats into the new millennium seemingly unfettered by work, love, or family.
Millennium Mambo was nominated for Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival; one of six times across his career that Hou’s work has received the accolade. In 2015, Hou won the Best Director award at the Cannes for The Assassin, a breathtaking wuxia delight which reunited him with Millennium Mambo star, Shu Qi.