Netizens express sorrow as Taiwan-based director Hou Hsiao-Hsien bids farewell to film due to dementia

Hou Hsiao-Hsien 

It was recently revealed that Hou Hsiao-Hsien, one of China’s most acclaimed directors, has retired due to dementia.

A source disclosed that the 76-year-old director “will certainly not work again,” reported Indiewire on October 24.

Originally from Guangdong Province, Hou is based in Taiwan most of the time. Hou is widely known for his social-realist depictions of ordinary people amid the turbulent contemporary history of Taiwan.

This shocking news means that the martial arts epic The Assassinled by Shu Qi will be his final film, for which he won Best Director at Cannes in 2015.

The topic has topped the trending chart on Chinese social media, earning 19.69 million views on China’s X-like Sina Weibo as of October 25. While many netizens expressed wishes for his good health and mental condition, a lot expressed regret that they won’t be able to see the long expectedShulan River, which is also led by Shu Qi.

“Taipei used to be in a basin with a lot of waterways, and aboriginal tribes lived along them. The waterways were used for paddy irrigation, but many of them have since been covered over by roads as a result of urbanization. They are all underground now. Many of the streets in Taipei are named after the old waterways. I thought, if there was a river goddess, she would be very lonely, feeling sad about this situation. I’m interested in this project because a lot of Taipeinese have lived in Taipei so long but they never got the chance to know about this,” said Hou in an interview with Film Comment back in 2015.