Three Times

Hou Hsiao Hsien, arguably Taiwan's greatest living filmmaker, crafts a peerless trilogy of short stories in Three Times. The first episode, “A Time for Love,” opens in a small town pool hall, circa 1966, where a recently drafted soldier named Chen meets a hostess named May before leaving on active duty (Chen promises to write May letters, but she moves and he is unable to track her down). The second story, “A Time for Freedom,” set in 1911, details the impossible love between a courtesan and a married journalist who is in the forefront of the fight against the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The third story, “A Time for Youth,” takes place in present-day Taipei and follows the doomed relationship between an epileptic lesbian singer and the male photographer with whom she's having a fling. Each story has rumblings of distant violence (the first and third stories touch on the agitation created by Communist Chinese threats against Taiwan), but the tumult from the outside world seems to pale next to the drama facing each pair of lovers. Blessed with extraordinary visuals, subtle acting by Shu Qi and Chang Chen (who play the leads in each story), and a mature and graceful sense of storytelling, Three Times is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (P. Hall)