Sunday | October 5, 2014 5:00 pm

Cheerful Wind
(Feng er ti ta cai)

Screening on Film

Directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien.
With Feng Fei-fei, Kenny Bee, Anthony Chan.
Taiwan, 1981, 35mm, color, 90 min.
Mandarin with English subtitles.
Print source: Center for Moving Image Arts at Bard College

Another romantic comedy that reteams the leads from Cute Girl, Hou’s second film raises the stakes for its central couple (melo)dramatically: he is blind, while she is living with her fiancé who also happens to be her boss. Similarly, Hou seems to take more chances formally, as with the opening film-within-the-film. Also pointing the way towards Hou’s later work is the film’s use of children as a foil and mirror to the adults around them.