Searching for a specifically Chinese approach to filmmaking, Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Boys From Fengkuei was the first film in what has become the traditional Hou style, extended long takes and a fixed-camera angle that heightens the sense of real time. The film depicts the social and economic changes taking place in postwar Taiwan as reflected in the lives of ordinary working class teenagers. After finishing school, the friends have little to do but spend time getting into trouble with the police. They play crude practical jokes, gamble, drink, fight, and chase girls as they wait for compulsory military service. The most introspective of the group, Ah-Ching lives in two worlds, the dissonant world of his buddies and the traditional culture that comes back to him in flashes of memory of his father when he was a young boy.

Constantly berated by his mother for his lack of ambition, Ah-Ching and two friends leave their traditional island home in Penghu to look for work in the Southern city of Kaohsiung. On the surface, the boys are street-wise, but beneath their swagger, their naivete is apparent when they are conned into paying to see non-existent porn movies on the 11th floor of a high-rise building. Ah-Ching's sister offers the boys an apartment and they find jobs in a local factory but an infatuation with a hoodlum's girl friend leaves Ah-Ching more alone than when he came. The only film of Hou to use Western classical music as a background, The Boys From Fengkuei is a work of nostalgia and remembrance, touching on love, respect for tradition, and the joy and pain of growing up.

In 2015 this film has been restored and transferred to 4K DCP, this is the version I saw. Of the early films I have seen of Hsiao-hsien, so far I like this one the least.

To get my criticism out of the way first, I found the pacing of the film not quite right. I like his slow style but it is very delicate; to get it right is an art in itself and in this movie it is just not quite there yet. The story also has some comedy aspects which I found didn't always work well.

Of course I am not Taiwanese and it is not 1983, that may be well be contributing factors in my being somewhat underwhelmed.

But don't get me wrong, I am in no way saying this is a bad film. It is just that some of the films he made a few years later, such as 'Dust in the wind' use many of the same techniques but do it much better. That film has some very similar scenes and plot lines.

We do see Hsiao-hsien's developing his style; there are some beautiful long shots of people doing mundane things. For instance, the female lead buys some flowers at a stall, and this simple moment is captured in a very humanistic and tender fashion.

I also love how the characters are internally conflicted but unable to express their feelings, and how this is conveyed in a minimalistic way. Scenes in which people say their goodbyes, life weighing heavy on their minds, but not acknowledging this to one another spring to mind.

I'd say that as an insight into the filmmaker's development it is definitely interesting to watch, but it is not yet masterful.

With New Year's Day coming up,I decided that in the last few remaining hours, I would finish viewing the early films of Hou.

View on the film:

Wrapping up the box set, Masters of Cinema present a refine transfer, with the picture quality of the print being clean, matched by the soundtrack being smooth.

Later calling this his "real" debut, directing auteur Hsiao-Hsien Hou reunites with his regular cinematographer of the era Kun-Hou Chen,and rids himself of the broad "Comedy" element which had never sat at ease in his earlier works.

Following the lads into the city, Hou stands back and breaths in the atmosphere with long Taiwan New Wave (TNW) lingering wide-shots backed by naturalistic background sounds over the dialogue, which are broken by swift panning shots over the lads stumbling towards adulthood, (such as getting conned for a "cinema screening" and attempts to kill a chicken slipping out of their hands.)

Penning the first of his team-ups with Hou that would continue across all of his other credits, the screenplay by T'ien-wen Chu stays perfectly in step with Hou's graceful mood, giving the dialogue a on the street TNW realism in the brisk exchanges between the boys from Fengkuei.