About

A homeless man (Lee Kang-sheng) and his two young children scrape by on the fringes of Taipei. With his job holding an advertising sign only barely funding their dinner and his drinking habit, the family sleep rough in a makeshift shelter. As the days roll into each other, the children begin interacting with a mysterious woman (played at different points by three of Tsai's frequent actors: Lu Yi-ching, Chen Shiang-chyi and Yang Kuei-mei) who becomes more involved in their lives.

Stray Dogs was the first feature that Tsai shot digitally and he employed the new technology to further push the formal bounds of his filmmaking. Drawing inspiration from his concurrent video art practice, and no longer constrained by the technical limits of analogue equipment, he extended his shots to previously infeasible lengths, expanding the hypnotic minimalism of his style. The result is one of Tsai's most remarkable, fully realised visions — a film of tremendous aesthetic originality and intense emotional power. With both bathos and pathos, Tsai captures the complexity and contradictions of human nature in a completely inimitable way.

Ages 15+ | Mature themes, nudity