Three Times Hou Hsiao Hsien
Three Times (2005)
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s is considered a major feature and a "masterpiece" because it functions as a summary of his career, weaving together three distinct love stories set across a century of Taiwanese history . The Three Stories
durational and accumulative
Hou’s signature fixed, medium-long shots frame doorways, courtyards, and the liminal spaces where boys play and adults endure. Time here is . The director forces the viewer to wait—for a character to exit a room, for a kettle to boil, for a father to die. The famous funeral sequence, shot in a single static take from outside the house, denies us the conventional close-up of grief. Instead, we watch the family’s backs as they face an unseen coffin. History’s trauma becomes an absence, a negative space. This is historical time as loss : not the event itself, but the long, silent afternoon after the event. Hou suggests that history is less a series of explosions than a persistent humidity—a pressure that bends wooden beams and weakens lungs over decades. three times hou hsiao hsien
- What strikes you: Time becomes physical. A 10-minute single take of a puppet show. A scene where a character simply walks across a room and sits—and you feel the entire weight of colonial history in that pause.
- Verdict: Not for the impatient. For the patient, it is transcendent. Hou suggests that history is not drama but endurance.
The Tragedy:
While the male protagonist fights for Taiwan’s national freedom, he is blind to the lack of personal freedom experienced by the courtesan he visits. Their "love" is a series of polite, agonizingly restrained gestures trapped behind screens and social expectations. The Complexity of Minimalism: Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times Three Times (2005) Hou Hsiao-hsien’s is considered a