Tsai Ming-liang

All of his productions star Lee Kang-sheng.

Tsai Ming-liang studied at Chinese Culture University. The recorded working language is Chinese. Work by Tsai Ming-liang is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Golden Lion, Golden Horse Award for Best Director, Officer of Arts and Letters and Asia's Most Influential Taiwan.

• Name — Tsai Ming-liang • Native Name — 蔡明亮 • Born — 27 October 1957 • Birthplace — Kuching, Crown Colony of Sarawak, British Empire (present-day Sarawak, Malaysia) • Education — Chinese Culture University (BA) • Occupation — Film director, screenwriter • Years Active — 1989–present • Awards — Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear 1997 – The River Tsai Ming-liang (born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian filmmaker based in Taiwan and one of the most celebrated directors in the Slow Cinema genre and the "Second New Wave" of Taiwanese cinema. Tsai has written and directed 11 feature films and many short films and television films. He is best known for his feature films Vive L'Amour (1994, for which he won the Golden Lion), The River (1997), Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) and Stray Dogs (2013). All of his productions star Lee Kang-sheng.

Tsai was born in Malaysia. He is of Chinese descent, born to Hakka Chinese farmers, 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.

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.

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.

• Illustration — 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 made 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.

Tsai is openly gay and has incorporated queer themes into his films. Since 2021, he has lived in the mountainous Xindian District of New Taipei City, where he partially renovated an abandoned apartment complex constructed in 1973 under the guidance of Jiang Changwen, a then-prominent Taiwanese actor and media personality. Much of the complex remains in disrepair. Tsai shares his living spaces with his long-term collaborator, Lee Kang-sheng, in a platonic relationship. They occupy only a small part of the development and are the last remaining residents on that road. Tsai's 2017 film The Deserted was largely shot at his residence. Tsai is an avid painter, having taking up the hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Year — Title • 2008 — Sleeping on Dark Waters • 2015 — Nà gè xià wu [That Afternoon, aka Afternoon] • 2018 — Your Face • 2025 — Back Home

• Year — English Title • 2012 — No Form • Walker • Diamond Sutra • Sleepwalk • 2013 — Walking on Water • 2014 — Journey to the West • 2015 — No No Sleep • 2018 — Sand • 2022 — Where • 2024 — Abiding Nowhere • 2026 — Dust

• 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] • Liang ye bu neng liu / The Night • The Moon and the Tree • 2022 — Where do you stand, Tsai Ming-Liang?

• Year — Title — Notes/Ref. Reference • 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"

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 • Lu Yi-ching • Yang Kuei-mei • Chen Shiang-chyi • Chen Chao-jung • Miao Tien • Norman Atun

• Year — English title — Original title — Notes/Ref. Reference • 1992 — Rebels of the Neon God — 青少年哪吒 • 1994 — Vive l'amour — 愛情萬歲 — Golden Lion winner • 1997 — The River — 河流 • 1998 — The Hole — 洞 • 2001 — What Time Is It There? — 你那邊幾點 • 2003 — Goodbye, Dragon Inn — 不散 • 2005 — The Wayward Cloud — 天邊一朵雲 • 2006 — I Don't Want to Sleep Alone — 黑眼圈 • 2009 — Face — 臉 • 2013 — Stray Dogs — 郊遊 • 2020 — Days — 日子

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