1992 ‘青少年哪吒’ Directed by Tsai Ming-liang
Defying his parents, disaffected youth Hsiao Kang drops out of the local cram school to head for the bright lights of downtown Taipei. He falls in with Ah Tze, a young hoodlum, and their relationship is a confused mixture of hero-worship and rivalry that soon leads to trouble.
Qing shao nian nuo zha, Teenage Nezha, Rebellen im Neonlicht, Rebeldes do Deus Neon, Επαναστάτες του ηλεκτρικού θεού, Neonisten gyermekei, Buntownicy neonowego boga, Os Rebeldes do Deus Neon, Teenage Norcha
Moving relationship stories Humanity and the world around us Underdogs and coming of age emotion, emotional, moving, feelings or sadness teenager, friendship, sad, adolescents or coming of age sex, sexuality, relationships, erotic or feelings school, teacher, student, classroom or classmates homosexuality, sexuality, relationships, feelings or homophobic Show All…
Unlike the desolate, depopulated Taipei featured in most of Tsai Ming-liang’s remarkable oeuvre, Rebels of the Neon God (Qingshaonian Nezha), the Malaysian-born Taiwanese master’s first full-length feature, introduces us to a bustling, neon-lit, more volatile metropolis one tends to encounter in the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang. But there is no mistaking the fact that it is Tsai’s work, in which his key, interconnected motifs of communication, sexual frustration, spiritual malaise, and modern urban alienation play out within the confines of exquisitely composed images, where every movement is designed to excavate the sorrow hidden beneath the surface.
Even if this film is slightly more conventional in its storyline than Tsai’s other features, it deserves to…
The title, the atmosphere, the bikes and everything else always give me the impression that this is a languid live-action Akira minus the psychic powers, retaining all the urban decay, social upheaval, teen angst and rivalry, etc. Rad movie.
Tsai Ming-liang isn’t for all tastes, but moviegoers with the patience to watch an 11-minute shot of a man mauling a cabbage (Stray Dogs) or a nearly dialogue-free epic about the final night of a repertory theater (Goodbye, Dragon Inn) are rewarded with indelible meditations on the loneliness of modern life.
Rebels of the Neon God, Tsai’s feature-length debut, follows an aimless student named Hsiao-kang (Lee) who lives in a crumbling Taipei apartment building with his parents. After a violent encounter with a pair of delinquents (Chen and Jen), Hsiao-kang grows obsessed with the thugs, stalking them as they play Street Fighter II and motorbike around town with a girl whose cut-off jean shorts never let you forget when the film was shot.
So good... but the end, idk I didn’t get it
Sort of felt like a
Holy shit I’m getting it all as I write this
Shit that’s so perfect.
Omg
Goddamn
This movie is incredible
JAMES DEAN is the answer
*btw rated it 4 stars before writing this*
!!!Don’t read this part if you haven’t seen it yet:
So basically Kang worships/ is in love with tze. He doesn’t hate him, he idolizes him.
And at first, tze’s ending seems corny and out of place AND kang’s ending seems lackluster and confusing.
BUT I remembered the moment when kang was staring at that James dean poster. And Tze’s ending felt like a cheesy (no offense) James Dean type ending. but it was meant to be. He had that romance/ perfect love ending that kang probably dreams of. But he is in that room waiting for a phone call and he’s too pussy to ever answer.
rain, crowds, streetfighter. neon punk and no escape from desperate longings. where we first see tsai ming liang's evil god: chewing and swallowing words and belching stillnesses, roiling in the air, casually heated. the way the camera searches the sky. possession by the demon god and the realm of his alien ways. intimations of haunting.
A cram school dropout. A pair of petty thieves. A carefree young woman. All drifting through the bustling bright darkness of Taipei. Arcades. Roller Rinks. Night Markets. Lost and found. Together, but not quite. Endless swarming traffic connected via a lifeblood of taxis and scooters. Refuge comes in the form of stained rooms, where kids can briefly reveal themselves before hiding once more in the apocalyptic adult uproar.
This was the gritty kind of Asia I grew up with. Every shot was an assorted candy-filled nostalgia trip that made me hunger for more! The endless locations these kids snake through kept me visually bombarded, even as their activities bordered on the mundane. I love it when films aren't afraid to…
A disaffected neon haze of a film that captures a portrait of how disconnection and modern distraction leads to boredom and violence.
A sense of permanence permeates over the urban decay of Tsai Ming-liang's perennially lonely Taipei. Disaffected youth from different walks of life: an aimless teenager, a couple of petty thieves and a carefree roller rink employee drift along busy roads and crummy houses, their paths converging to varying degrees while the shores of their consciousnesses progressively become blurrier.
A constant sea of people and a seemingly larger sea of scooters and taxis cannot make the youth at the center of Rebels of the Neon God any less alienated. While the other three primarily communicate through alcohol, food and sex, Hsiao-Kang foregoes the act of communication altogether. The one attempt he makes is thwarted nonetheless.
Alienation is an inherent characteristic of…
The apartment floods when it rains. What’s the point in trying to clean it up if it just keeps happening? Your bedroom floor is a puddle. Might as well use it as an ashtray, then.
Inescapable poverty, petty crime, a few coins for the arcade. Angry, aimless youth. A view of the modern world through a taxi’s broken mirror. Is that Chekhov’s air gun? I thought something would come of it, but no. Ain’t that type of movie. Instead, we get a ringing telephone, never answered.
Hsiao-kang stares at a poster of James Dean, the original rebel without a cause. He finds a real one, Ah-tze, and begins to follow him. Does he want to be like this young man…
Rebels of the Neon God bristles with cool, yet it also presents something tragic about aimless lives. With throbbing music and busy scenes, it is alive, in a way that many 90s East Asian films were. Rebels of the Neon God presents a search for identity, through vague wanderings of existence. You cannot live up to the standards of gods. The film presents a rundown world, which functions as a house for so many lost souls. This is a film of youthful ignorance, mistakes, and rebellion. Sex plays in the dark, just bodies glistening from outside light. Rebels of the Neon God is the tragedy of being.
It is fascinating to observe so many recognizable Tsai motifs under a less rigorous construction. His use of Taipei, water and Lee Kang Sheng's presence is already first rate.
