Unjustly overshadowed by A City of Sadness and The Puppetmaster, Good Men, Good Women completes Hou’s trilogy of epics about Taiwanese history in a self-reflexive vein: it is a film about the making of a film about martial law and brutal political repression in the 1950s. Hou alternates between the film’s lead actress and the real personage she is portraying. As the actress sinks deeper into her character, the more unreal and alienating does the world around her seem. The sacrifices of those who resisted martial law are movingly and wrenchingly recounted here, even as Good Men, Good Women asks whether we can honor or even remember history in a world centered on disposability and consumption.