This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

As much about the power art can possess as it is about love. Its first half, which ends with the film getting rather uncomfortably didactic, is put to great use in its second half to sneak up on you. A very affecting film that's not at all shy about doing some meta-commentary along the way. All being said, the necessary byproduct of such a film is the tendency to make look every frame a painting, which, while beautiful to look at, tends to break the illusion at times. (This was particularly bothersome in some of the most intimate moments.)

I can't stop thinking about Rebels of the Neon God's opening sequence.

Hsiao-Kang notices a cockroach aimlessly wandering into his room. He then walks up to it and traps this worthless creature in the most cruelest way possible, and after he's had his fun, he throws it out the window. But it being a cockroach, comes back and sticks on the closed window while it's raining outside — eager to make the same mistake it initially did by entering the room.

If that's not the perfect metaphor of youth, I don't know what is.

Great start to my journey into Tsai Ming-liang's filmography.