Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter of the Nile is the groundbreaking 1987 drama from one of modern world cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, and Cohen Media Group celebrates the film’s 30th anniversary with 4K digital restoration.
A rediscovered gem in the filmography of Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien, Daughter of the Nile is a neon-lit, contemporary drama inspired by the heroine of a Japanese manga series. With Hou’s gentle but keen observation, the film follows a young woman and her brother as they float along the periphery of the Taipei underworld, intriguingly blending gangster tale with mood-drenched introspective drama. Based on the personal experiences of frequent Hou screenwriter Chu T’ien-wen, the film is a profoundly moving observation of marginalized youth.
The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1987 Turin International Festival of Young Cinema and was entered into the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hou Hsiao-hsien emerged in the ’80s to become one of the leading figures, along with Edward Yang and Chen Kunhou, of the New Taiwanese Cinema, a movement away from the kung fu films and overwrought melodramas of the past to an emphasis on realistic portrayals of everyday life, a style often compared to Italian neorealism. Hou’s Daughter of the Nile sits among a string of masterpieces-A Summer at Grandpa’s, A City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster, Flowers of Shanghai-that led him to be voted Director of the Decade for the 1990s in a poll of American and international critics put together by The Village Voice and Film Comment. His most recent film, The Assassin,brought him the Best Director prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
In addition to offering digitally restored picture and sound, Cohen Film Collection’s release boast a wealth of extras. Both the Blu-ray and DVD include an audio commentary track by film scholar Richard Suchenski, a new interview with Asian cinema expert Tony Rayns and the 2017 rerelease trailer.