Goodbye, Dragon Inn

Recently, I watched Goodbye, Dragon Inn, a movie from 2004 that was directed by Ming-liang Tsai. What I found really unique about this movie was both its setting and its deliberately slow pacing. The film takes place in a movie theatre, where the main character and a few others are watching the movie Dragon Inn, an old sword-fighting classic directed by King Hu. Many of the shots in the movie are dragged on far past the point where most other movies would have cut. I often found myself wondering “how much longer are they going to show this empty background”, or “how much longer am I going to watch this person eat”. I think the director wanted to make the audience become more aware of how time is used in movies by making the time that elapsed within the movie almost match the duration of the actual film. Overall, I found this movie kind of painful to watch because of how slow it was, but it definitely was a novel experience. If you want to learn more about it, you can check out: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/goodbye_dragon_inn_2004