Details:

GOODBYE, DRAGON INN in 35mm

GOODBYE, DRAGON INN with Prof. Corey Byrnes (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003, 88m, 35mm)

RSVP

In his 2004 review of Tsai Ming-liang’s film GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2003), the NY Sun’s Nathan Lee cautioned against proclaiming the death of cinema, but did grant that “it’s hard not to feel…that the cinema could come to a marvelous end right here.” At the time, GOODBYE DRAGON INN – which takes place entirely in Taipei’s dilapidated Fu He Grand Theater on its last night of operation – did seem to augur the end of an era. The King Hu film DRAGON INN (1967) flickers on the screen to a handful of restless, rustling, eating, smoking, seat-shifting patrons – including two actors from Hu’s original film, one of whom mutters, “No one goes to the movies anymore, and no one remembers us anymore.” In the pensive, static long takes that are his trademark, director Tsai Ming-Liang observes the lone ticketing attendant as she ponderously manages and cleans the cinema, a Japanese tourist who wanders into the men’s toilets and back halls as he attempts to cruise, and the projectionist who languidly rewinds the film in the projection booth at the end of the day and locks up. In the unfulfilled desires and unending labors of its characters, GOODBYE DRAGON INN insists that, despite the passing of its great heyday, the cinema remains an architecture of amorous searching and potential communion between strangers and lovers. After over 20 years, GOODBYE DRAGON INN appears less like a eulogy and more like a testament to the endurance of the art form itself. 

To preface this special 35mm presentation of GOODBYE, DRAGON INN, Block Cinema will welcome Corey Byrnes, Associate Professor of Chinese Culture at Northwestern, for an introduction, offered in conjunction with his Fall 2026 course on Taiwanese New Wave Cinema.

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu