On a dark, wet night in Taipei City, a cavernous old picture palace is about to close its doors forever. A meager audience, the remaining few staff, and perhaps even a ghost or two, watch King Hu’s wuxia classic Dragon Inn—each haunted by memories and desires evoked by cinema itself.
Tsai Ming-liang’s award-winning and nostalgically cinephilic masterwork is beloved by many and it’s not hard to see why. This moving, deliberately slow paean to the faded splendor of old movie-palaces captures so much of what we love (and love to hate!) about the anonymous communality of moviegoing.