Hou Hsiao-hsien returns to the terrain of contemporary youth experience with pop star Yang Lin as a teenager who escapes her fraught family situation into the fantasy world of a Japanese comic book in which a female time traveler in ancient Egypt falls in love with a pharaoh—echoing her own infatuation with her brother’s gigolo associate. An artfully subdued and unostentatiously refined portrait of nocturnal teenage anomie by one of cinema’s giants. 

In Mandarin with English subtitles.

Official Selection: Venice Film Festival, New York Film Festival.

U.S. theatrical premiere engagement of 30th anniversary 4K restoration. A Cohen Film Collection release.