The eldest daughter of a broken and troubled family works to keep the family together and look after her younger siblings, who are slipping into a life of crime.
Watching a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien (Café Lumière, The Assassin) is like opening a bottle of Taiwan's finest movie magic. His restrained and subtle way of shooting scenes feels like a must-have in our contemporary cinematic hell of exaggerated editing, simplified storytelling and dumbed down characters for the masses. Daughter of the Nile spoils us with a beautiful portrayal of life in 1980's Taipei's neon-soaked street-corners and crowded bars. We get to see just how close the danger lies even to those who should be far from it.
Hou is a big name in Asian film circles, but I'm certain that if he would have been a western filmmaker his films would make a much larger splash and be acclaimed by a much larger audience. Now they sort of lives on as an old reminder of how Taiwan made films in ways critics praise directors for in modern times.
Genre: Crime/Drama
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