The Best Time

This film is a summary of Hou Hsiao-hsien's film career. The way the male (Chang Chen) and the female (Shu Qi) protagonists express their emotions in the three stories and the background of the times can be found in Hou Hsiao-hsien's films of various periods. "Love Dream" is pure, as if it is the other side of an unreachable dream; "Freedom Dream" is touching, but it is a more distant dream close to heaven; "Youth Dream" is cold, but it is reality. It doesn't make much sense to say which period is "the best time (or the best movie time)" in Hou Hsiao-hsien's eyes, because all time is lived up to and wasted, and only after being let down and wasted can one pick a certain period out of memory, pat the dust accumulated on it, and lament that it is the best time.