Tsai Ming-liang

In this Chinese name, the family name is Tsai (蔡).

Tsai Ming-liang
蔡明亮
Tsai at the 2013 Tokyo Filmex
Born	(1957-10-27) 27 October 1957 Kuching, Crown Colony of Sarawak (present-day Kuching, Malaysia)
Alma mater	Chinese Culture University (BA)
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter
Years active	1989–present
Awards	Venice Film Festival – Golden Lion 1994 – Vive L'Amour Grand Jury Prize 2013 – Stray Dogs Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear 1997 – The River Golden Horse Awards – Best Feature Film 1994 – Vive L'Amour Best Director 1994 – Vive L'Amour 2013 – Stray Dogs
Chinese name
Chinese	蔡明亮
Hanyu Pinyin	Cài Míngliàng

Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese: 蔡明亮; born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian filmmaker based in Taiwan. Tsai has written and directed 11 feature films, many short films, and television films. He is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese cinema. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous awards at festivals. In 1994, Tsai won the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice International Film Festival for the film Vive L'Amour.

Early life

Tsai was born in Malaysia, is of Chinese descent and spent his first 20 years in Kuching, Sarawak, after which he moved to Taipei, Taiwan. This, he said, had "a huge impact on [his] mind and psyche". "Even today", Tsai has said, "I feel I belong neither to Taiwan nor to Malaysia. In a sense, I can go anywhere I want and fit in, but I never feel that sense of belonging."

Tsai graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Culture University of Taiwan in 1982 and worked as a theatrical producer, screenwriter, and television director in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 1991, he directed several telefilms. One of these, Boys, starred his muse, Lee Kang-sheng.

Career

1992–1998

Tsai's first feature film was Rebels of the Neon God (1992). A film about troubled youth in Taipei, it starred Lee as the character Hsiao-Kang. Lee went on to appear in all of Tsai's feature films as of 2023. Tsai's second feature, Vive L'Amour (1994), is about three people who unknowingly share an apartment. The film is slow-paced, has little dialogue, and is about alienation; all of these became Tsai's trademarks. Vive L'Amour was critically acclaimed and won the Golden Horse Awards for best picture and best director.

Tsai's next film was The River (1997), in which a family has to deal with the son's neck pain. The family is similar to one that appears in Rebels of the Neon God and is played by the same three actors. The Hole (1998) is about two neighbors in an apartment. It features several musical numbers.

1999–2009

In Tsai's next film, What Time Is It There? (2001), a man and a woman meet in Taipei before the woman travels to Paris. This was Tsai's first film to star Chen Shiang-chyi, who starred in his next few films alongside Lee. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) is about people inside an old cinema that is closing down. For this film, Tsai included even longer shots and fewer lines of dialogue than in previous films, a trend that continued in his later work. The Wayward Cloud (2005) is a sequel to What Time Is It There? in which Hsiao-Kang and Shiang-chyi meet again and start a relationship while Hsiao-Kang works as a pornographic film actor. This film, like The Hole, features several musical numbers.

Tsai's next film, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006), was his first set in Malaysia and is about two different characters, both played by Lee. In 2007, the Malaysian Censorship Board banned the film based on incidents shown depicting the country "in a bad light" for cultural, ethical, and racial reasons, but later allowed it to be screened in the country after Tsai agreed to censor parts of the film according to the board's requirements. Tsai's next film, Face (2009), is about a Taiwanese director who travels to France to shoot a film.

2010–present

Tsai (left) was named Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the 2010 Busan International Film Festival.

Tsai's next feature film was Stray Dogs (2013), about a homeless family.

Most of Tsai's output in the 2010s was dedicated to his exhibition films, in particular the Walker series (2012–24), the subject of which was a monk played by Lee who travels by walking slowly, usually surrounded by a busy background.

In 2020, Tsai released Days, which competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale film festival.

In 2021, Tsai released Wandering, a short installation film with no dialogue, which follows a woman visiting an exhibition of Tsai's "Walker" series in Taiwan.

In December 2024, Tsai is scheduled to make his Australian in-person debut at an "In Conversation" event at the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane. This event coincides with a special retrospective of Tsai's work as part of QAGOMA's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.

Honours

Tsai's honours include a Golden Lion (best picture) for Vive L'Amour at the 51st Venice International Film Festival; the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize for The River at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival; the FIPRESCI award for The Hole at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival; and the Alfred Bauer Prize and Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement for The Wayward Cloud at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival; the Grand Jury Prize at the 70th Venice International Film Festival for Stray Dogs. In 1995, he was a member of the jury at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2003, The Guardian voted Tsai No. 18 of the 40 best directors in the world. In 2014, he was named an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the government of France.

Personal life

Tsai is gay and has incorporated queer themes into his films. Since 2021, he has lived in the mountains near Taipei, where he renovates and lives in abandoned apartments. He shares his living spaces with his long-term collaborator, Lee Kang-sheng, in a platonic relationship.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title
1992	Rebels of the Neon God
1994	Vive L'Amour
1997	The River
1998	The Hole
2001	What Time Is It There?
2003	Goodbye, Dragon Inn
2005	The Wayward Cloud
2006	I Don't Want to Sleep Alone
2009	Face
2013	Stray Dogs
2020	Days

"Walker" series

Year	Title
2012	No Form
2012	Walker
2012	Diamond Sutra
2012	Sleepwalk
2013	Walking on Water
2014	Journey to the West
2015	No No Sleep
2018	Sand
2022	Where
2024	Abiding Nowhere

Other exhibition works

Year	Title
2001	Fish, Underground (or A Conversation with God)
2002	The Skywalk Is Gone
2008	Madame Butterfly– part of the Lucca Film Festival project "Twenty Puccini"
2015	Xiao Kang
2017	The Deserted
2019	Light
2021	Màn bù jīng xīn [Casually] [aka Wandering]
2021	Liang ye bu neng liu / The Night
2021	The Moon and the Tree
2022	Where do you stand, Tsai Ming-Liang?

Segments

Year	Title	Notes
2004	Welcome to São Paulo	"Aquarium"
2007	To Each His Own Cinema	"It's a Dream"
2012	Beautiful 2012	"Walker"
2013	Letters from the South	"Walking on Water"
2015	Beautiful 2015	"No No Sleep"

Documentaries

Year	Title
2008	Sleeping on Dark Waters
2015	Nà gè xià wu [That Afternoon, aka Afternoon]
2018	Your Face

Telefilms

Year	Title
1989	Endless Love
1989	The Happy Weaver
1989	Far Away
1989	All Corners of the World
1990	Li Hsiang's Love Line
1990	My Name is Mary
1990	Ah-Hsiung's First Love
1991	Give Me a Home
1991	Boys
1991	Hsio Yueh's Dowry
1995	My New Friends

Casting

Tsai frequently recasts actors he has worked with on previous films:

Actor	Rebels of the Neon God (1992)	Vive L'Amour (1994)	The River (1997)	The Hole (1998)	What Time Is It There? (2001)	Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)	The Wayward Cloud (2005)	I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)	Face (2009)	Stray Dogs (2013)	Days (2020)
Lee Kang-sheng	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Lu Yi-ching	Y	Y	Y		Y		Y		Y	Y
Yang Kuei-mei		Y	Y	Y		Y	Y		Y	Y
Chen Shiang-chyi			Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Chen Chao-jung	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y			Y
Miao Tien	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y
Norman Atun								Y	Y

External links

• Tsai Ming-liang at IMDb
• Tsai Ming-liang at Strictly Film School
• AV Club interview
• Asia Pacific Arts interview
• Tsai Ming-liang on Tsai Ming-liang at Asia Society
• Walking with Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng