Rebels of the Neon God is a very strong, textured, multilayered debut from a gifted filmmaker.

| Jan 20, 2021

Coolly detached, Rebels of the Neon God offers no salvation for its disaffected youth-nor does it suggest they deserve any.

| Original Score: 7/10 | May 5, 2020

With its handheld camerawork, restrained electronic score, vivid colors, persistent rainstorms and vibrant street scenes, Rebels of the Neon God creates a tangible sense of time and place, even as it delves deeper into incoherence and dissolution.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 12, 2019

Although the characters speak sparingly, especially the taciturn Hsiao-Kang, we come away understanding their world a little better. The conflicts that they encounter along the way are by no means resolved, but the ending is satisfying just the same.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 23, 2018

Hsiao, like everyone else of his generation, can't move forward in this twilight, which is soon to enter a night that will be terminated by the dawn of new political arrangements in the region and a bright new class of consumer technologies.

| Aug 23, 2018

Not to suggest that cigarette smoking or petty crime is cool, but is it possible to have a cooler entrance than that of Ah Tze and Ah Bing, first seen robbing a blue-lit phone booth on a rainy night in Taipei, cigarettes dangling from their lips?

| Dec 31, 2015

We've seen these kids before, but we've never seen them quite like this.

| Original Score: B | Oct 30, 2015

Like Godard's "Breathless" and Wong's "As Tears Go By," "Rebels" cunningly synthesizes both B-movie and art film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 9, 2015

A breathtaking, disturbing look at urban angst and the emptiness of youth culture ...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 2, 2015

More than just watching an early film by an untouchable master; it allows you to see his style with newly fresh eyes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 1, 2015

It seems so fresh and immediate you'd never know that it's 23 years old.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 29, 2015

For fans of arthouse cinema, it's easily the most interesting thing to come along in some time.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 26, 2015

One of the great films about modern unrest and the pangs of youth. I can't wait to watch it again.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 12, 2015

A clinical, cool-suspicious dissection of disaffected youth maneuvering Taipei's grimier, noisier corners.

| Jun 11, 2015

Rebels of the Neon God still brims with the panache of someone still figuring himself out...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 16, 2015

Tsai's film is steeped in sweaty ennui. Somehow he's managed to capture the humid closeness of city dwelling on celluloid.

| Original Score: 8.9/10 | Apr 16, 2015

[Rebels of the Neon God] is the director's most accessible film. That will seem like a funny observation once you've seen it, because Tsai's most accessible film is more unusual and uncompromising than any you're likely to see this year.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 14, 2015

Hsiao-Kang's bad night out is one of the things that marks Rebels as a Tsai Ming-liang film. There's never any real, safe home in his films.

| Apr 14, 2015

With longing gazes, antic and violent outbursts, and exquisite coincidences set amid his fetish objects-leaky pipes and bloody wounds, fast food and bathroom fixtures-Tsai depicts the city as a spontaneous, sticky, erotic ballet.

| Apr 13, 2015

In addition to having one of the best titles ever, "Rebels of the Neon God" marks the start of one of modern cinema's great careers.

| Apr 9, 2015