A City of Sadness () is a 1989 Taiwanese historical drama directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. It tells the story of the Lin family amid the political turmoil surrounding the February 28 Incident of 1947 and the emergence of the political repression that later became known as Taiwan's "White Terror".Li, From Killing Many to Targeting Few: Economic Growth and Selective Repression in Taiwan's White Terror Period (2026), p.100, footnote 1 “White Terror Period was Taiwan's authoritarian period from 1949 to 1987 with martial law” https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/941B58A0F878106E6233764CDC2416F0/S1468109925100212a.pdf/div-class-title-from-killing-many-to-targeting-few-economic-growth-and-selective-repression-in-taiwan-s-white-terror-period-div.pdf The film was the first to deal openly with the Kuomintang government's (KMT) authoritarian Hutnyk, Ghosting Taiwan: Sound, Lights, and Action in Recollections of the White Terror (2025), p. 1123 “whose appearance in 1989 dared to recount the KMT’s massacre of Taiwaneseon February 28, 1947, dared not to even men-tion the incident by name in the film. Pressself-censorship quietly remained in place for few years, before any open criticism appeared publicly” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/14649373.2025.2567139?needAccess=true rule after its 1945 takeover of Taiwan following Japan's defeat in World War II, and the first to depict the February 28 Incident in Taiwanese cinema. Scholars have also regarded the film as an important work in Taiwan's ongoing engagement with the memory and legacy of the White Terror.Hutnyk, Ghosting Taiwan: Sound, Lights, and Action in Recollections of the White Terror (2025), Abstract: "The 2023 large-screen re-release of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's film A City of Sadness stirred memory and identity all over again in Taiwan." & “The article suggests all three films reckon with the ghosts of White Terror…” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/14649373.2025.2567139?needAccess=true”
A City of Sadness was the first (of three) Taiwanese films to win the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and is often considered Hou's masterpiece. The film was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
This film is regarded as the second installment in the Wu Nien-jen trilogy as well as the first installment in a loose trilogy of Hsiao-Hsien's films that deal with Taiwanese history, which also includes The Puppetmaster (1993) and Good Men, Good Women (1995). These films are collectively called the "Taiwan Trilogy" by academics and critics.
Plot As Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II, the Lin family headed by Lin Ah-lu (Li Tian-lu) is in Keelung, a coastal town near Taipei, to celebrate the opening of their nightclub and gambling house called ‘Little Shanghai’, operated by the first son, Wen-hsiung (Chen Sung-young). The same day, the young nurse Hinomi (Hsin Shu-fen) arrives to take her new position at Kinguichu Miners’ Hospital, where her brother Hinoe has asked his friend, Wen-ching (Tony Leung), the deaf fourth son of the Lin family, to meet her.
As the Japanese are leaving the island, Hinomi parts with her friend, Shizuko (Nakamura Ikuyo), and spends time with Hinoe (Wu Yi-fang) and his socialist friends. Wen-liang, the Lin family’s third son (Jack Kao) returns to Taiwan, shellshocked from his experience serving in the Japanese army. Once he recovers, he links up with Taiwanese gangster ‘Red Monkey’ (Ai Tsu-tu) and a Shanghainese mob, who convince him to take part in a smuggling operation which involves Wen-hsiung’s shipping business. Red Monkey introduces Ah-ga (Kenny Cheung), the brother of Wen-hsiung’s concubine to the bar hostess Ah-tsun, and attempts to involve him in the distribution of counterfeit Japanese money. Shortly thereafter, Red Monkey is killed and the money disappears. Wen-hsiung inadvertently discovers Ah-ga, Wen-liang, and their gangster friends from Shanghai have used his ships and storehouse to smuggle illegal goods, and demands they halt their criminal activities.
Later in a gambling house, Wen-liang recognises Ah-tsun, now under the ‘protection’ of one of the mainland gangsters, Kim-tsua, and unsuccessfully demands she provide his share of Red Monkey's money, leading to the gangsters to beat Wen-liang up. Despite an attempt at mediation, the Shanghai gang use their mainland connections to denounce the Lin brothers as Japanese collaborators. While Wen-hsiung escapes, Wen-liang is arrested by Nationalist soldiers. Wen-hsiung and Ah-ga organise a meeting with the Shanghai gangsters to obtain his release. However, Wen-liang has been tortured in jail, and suffers brain damage as a result.
Hinomi and Wen-ching develop a special friendship as she spends more time with the Lin household. She also befriends Ah-shue (Huang Tsien-ru), one of Wen-hsiung’s daughters.
The February 28 Incident of 1947 occurs, in which thousands of Taiwanese protesting against Kuomintang rule, are massacred. As Chen Yi, the chief executive of Taiwan, declares martial law, Hinomi and Hinoe seek refuge in their parents’ ancestral home, but their father orders Hinoe to find another hiding place. From Hinomi's correspondence with Ah-shue, she learns Wen-ching was arrested at the Kinguichu Miners' Hospital. In prison, Wen-ching learns the Kuomintang are conducting summary trials and executions. He is released and visits the widow of one of his cellmates who was executed, before tracking down Hinoe, who has married and joined an anti-Kuomintang guerilla group in the mountains. Wen-ching attempts to join Hinoe, who refuses and tells Wen-ching Hiromi loves him. Upon Wen-ching's return to the Lin family house, he finds Hinomi involved in domestic chores there.
Wen-ching informs Hiromi he found Hinoe during his trip. Wen-hsiung, restless on account of having closed the business after the events of February and March, scolds him for not proposing to Hinomi and storms out of the house to gamble with Ah-ga. In the gambling house, Ah-ga confronts one of the gangsters responsible for Wen-liang’s arrest, and a fight ensues in which Wen-hsiung is killed. Shortly after Wen-hsiung’s funeral, Hinomi and Wen-ching marry, and Hinomi gives birth to a boy, Ah-chien.
The couple continue to provide covert funding to Hinoe's resistance group, but the government soon defeats and executes almost all of the guerilla forces, including Hinoe. A survivor informs Wen-ching of this, but Hinomi notes they have nowhere to flee to. Wen-ching is arrested and disappeared by the government for his involvement with the guerillas soon after. In a letter to Ah-shue, Hinomi writes she has searched for news of Wen-ching around Taipei, but cannot find him.
Historical background During the fifty years of Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), Taiwan's development under Japanese rule differed drastically from that of mainland China.Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895–1945 | Columbia University Press https://cup.columbia.edu/book/taiwan-under-japanese-colonial-rule-18951945/9780231137980/ After Japan's defeat in World War II, rule over Taiwan was transferred to the Republic of China (ROC) led by the Kuomintang. This led to significant political, social, cultural, and economic changes for the Taiwanese people. Cultural and social conflicts arose between the native Taiwanese who had experienced fifty years of Japanese colonial rule and the mainlanders who came to Taiwan with the Kuomintang after the war. As political power became increasingly concentrated in the hands of mainland elites in the new government, political distrust further intensified.The Rehabilitation Movement over the 2.28 Incident under KMT Rule (1987-1997): Reexamining the transition from “confrontation” to “reconciliation.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/24761028.2022.2067611?needAccess=true
Meanwhile, in the late 1940s, the Nationalist government was engaged in a civil war against the Communists on the mainland. The Chinese economy deteriorated rapidly, and the post-war economic situation in Taiwan worsened daily. An increasing number of illegal activities took place across the Taiwan Strait, and social disturbances—resulting from unemployment, food shortages, poverty, and housing issues—became imminent.
The February 28th Incident One of the restrictions implemented at the time was the ban of cigarette trading. The immediate story begins in the front of a tea house in Taipei the day before, on February 27, 1947, when agents from the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau confiscated a Taiwanese female cigarette vendor's illegal cigarettes as well as her money, and then beat her over the head with a pistol while attempting to arrest her. An angry crowd swarmed the agents, prompting one official to open fire on the crowd, killing a bystander. The news triggered mass protests the following morning on February 28; more people were killed by the police and it quickly turned into a large-scale riot. While many local Taiwanese took this as an opportunity to seek revenge on mainlanders, Governor Chen Yi issued martial law and requested Nationalist troops from the mainland to suppress the incident. For the following 38 years, Taiwan was placed under martial law in a period now known as the "White Terror", where a generation of Taiwanese local elites were arrested and killed. It was estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 people died as a result of the 2/28 incident, with more people dying or going missing during the White Terror. The trauma of 2/28 haunted Taiwan's politics and society and soured the relationship between the Taiwanese and mainlanders for several decades.
Cast
Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Lin Wen-ching (), fourth brother, a photographer. He is deaf-mute because of an accident in his childhood. He communicates with others mainly by writing, especially with Hinomi. He falls in with the anti-Kuomintang intellectuals and is eventually arrested for it. Chen Sung-young as Lin Wen-hsiung (), eldest brother, and owner of a trading company and the Little Shanghai restaurant. After his restaurant is closed down following 2/28, he falls into drinking and gambling, and is shot to death during a spur of the moment revenge attack for Wen-liang. Jack Kao as Lin Wen-liang (), third brother, traumatized by his time in the war. After his release from hospital, he goes into business with Shanghai gangsters. After causing them more trouble than he is worth, Wen-liang is framed by the gangsters and goes to prison where he is beaten and suffers brain damage before being released. Li Tian-lu as Lin Ah-lu (), patriarch of the Lin family. Xin Shufen as Wu Hinomi (Japanese pronunciation of her Chinese name: 吳寬美), sister of Hinoe, and is a nurse in the hospital. She knows Wen-ching through her brother Hinoe. She usually communicates with Wen-ching by writing. She marries Wen-ching after he is released from prison and they have a child. Wu Yi-fang as Wu Hinoe (Japanese pronunciation of his Chinese name: 吳寬榮), friend of Wen-Ching, brother of Hinomi, and a school teacher. He establishes an anti-government organization in the mountains following the February 28 incident. Ai Tsu-tu as Red Monkey, a small-time Taiwanese gangster who recruits Wen-liang into his criminal smuggling enterprise. Lin Juh as Kim-tsua, one of the Shanghainese mobsters responsible for imprisoning Wen-liang. Nakamura Ikuyo as Shizuko, a friend of Hinomi's. as Mr. Lin. A progressive friend of Hinomi. Wu Nien-jen as Mr. Wu, the father of Hinomi and Hinoe. Zhang Dachun as Reporter Ho. Tsai Chen-nan as singer (cameo appearance).
Music +No.Name01～A City Of Sadness02Hiromi～Flute Solo0304Hiromi05～Variation 206～Dedicated To Hou Hsiao-Hsien Sourced from Xiami Music.
Production