Confucian Confusion / Mahjong Blu-ray
'A Confucian Confusion' + 'Mahjong' Director: Edward Yang (1994 + 1996) Criterion Collection 2-Disc Blu-ray | 4K restorations | Mandarin w/ English subtitles
In this pair of sharp, sprawling satires, one of Taiwan’s most celebrated filmmakers, Edward Yang, captures the anything-can-happen mood of Taipei at the end of the twentieth century.
Made in between his epic dramas A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong find Yang applying a lighter but no less masterly touch to his explorations of human relationships in an increasingly globalised, hypercapitalistic world. These intricately constructed ensemble comedies - one set in a cutthroat corporate milieu, the other in a shady criminal underworld - reveal the absurdity and cynicism at the heart of modern urban life.
Special features include:
- Excerpts of director Edward Yang speaking after a 1994 screening of A Confucian Confusion
- Interview with editor Chen Po-wen
- Conversation between Chinese-cultural-studies scholar Michael Berry and film critic Justin Chang
- Performance of Yang’s 1992 play Likely Consequence
- Essay by film programmer and critic Dennis Lim and a 1994 director’s note on A Confucian Confusion