Traditional Chinese Aesthetics and Contemporary Chinese Films: Applying the Idea of Qi-yun to Understand the Temporal Structure of Selected Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien

There is a consensus that Hou Hsiao-hsien’s stylistic characteristics include long take, static shot, slight reframing, relatively long distance between camera and subject, and empty shot (Chiao 1988; Meng 1993; Yeh 2005). Hou’s style is certainly distinct from classic Hollywood cinemas continuity grammar that was well established in the first half of the twentieth century, and is by and large followed by the world’s commercial cinema. Hou’s style even contradicts what David Bordwell calls the “intensified continuity,” developed in Hollywood from the 1970s to 1990s, that consists of accelerated cutting rate, emphasis on comparatively close shot-scale, and great deal of versatile camera movement (Bordwell 2005, 147). Hou states that his long take/static shot camera treatment may be involuntary, having emerged from a lack of resources, including professional actors (Cheuk 2008, 51). Nevertheless, there is no doubt that “it becomes a goal to be pursued for its own sake — no longer a byproduct of a constraint, but a source of delicacy, suspense, surprise, and other artistic effects” (Bordwell 2005, 160).