Award Winning :

• Winner - Fipresci Prize "Cannes Film Festival 1998"

Special Features:

- Filmography
- Photo GalleryA

t the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, this Taiwanese-French drama won a FIPRESCI Award, given by international critics. Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang previously won top awards for his 1994 Vive l'amour (at Venice) and 1996 The River (at Berlin). High strangeness is evident in the tale, originally initiated as part of the French TV series of one-hour end-of-millennium dramas. As an epidemic spreads through Taipei, virus victims display odd symptoms.

A man (Lee Kang-sheng) who runs a food store with few customers lives in a shabby building in a quarantined section, and a woman (Yang Kuei-mei) in the same building has a withdrawn existence. A plumber, checking a leak, makes a hole in the man's floor and leaves; the man then observes his neighbors through the hole. The film features four musical fantasy sequences that recall Hong Kong musical films of the '50s.

Seven days to the 21st century: the rain will not let up in Taiwan, and a strange disease reaches epic proportions. Despite evacuation warnings, the tenants of a run-down public housing building stay put. A plumber has been sent to Hsiao Kang's apartment, but instead of fixing the leak, he leaves a gaping hole in the middle of the living room. Through the hole, Kang spies on his downstairs neighbor, a woman who stockpiles toilet paper and dreams about singing and dancing in Kang's arms.