This is a fascinating exercise in utilising style to make subtle psychological and political statements.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2006

Hsiao-Hsien reinforces his excellent cinematography with a bold use of music, featuring The Platters' Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, but ultimately the running time could have been halved and he would still have made his point.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2006

An emotional journey, a showcase for two fine actors, and a multifaceted picture of love.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 14, 2006

A film to get lost in, a fragmentary, impressionistic trilogy of fleeting moments of love that is one of the best films of the year.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 7, 2006

Seen in isolation, the first episode has the most satisfying plot and the last the least. But the film's achievement lies mostly in the beautifully articulated similarities and differences among the three.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 23, 2006

Three varieties of love: unfulfilled, mercenary, meaningless. All photographed with such visual beauty that watching the movie is like holding your breath so the butterfly won't stir.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 23, 2006

Great cinema, pop romance that carries a special charge.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 22, 2006

Can a film be exquisite and, at the same time, less than one hoped for? This question arose as Three Times unfolded.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 19, 2006

A discreetly cosmic, majestic trilogy.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 13, 2006

The deceptive simplicity of these vignettes, written by Chu Tien-wen, throws into relief Hou's formidable storytelling strengths and visual acuity -- his way with actors, his subtlety and expressiveness.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 12, 2006

Do Hou's films deserve to be seen? Absolutely, if only to end the myth that they're too perfect for this world.

| Original Score: B | May 3, 2006

... a lyrical, subtle, chaste and nearly wordless romance between a giggly pool-hall hostess and a former customer on a one-night leave from the military.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 28, 2006

The first section of "Three Times" is fabulous; the second is fascinating if remote; and the third a jangly, modernist mess.

| Apr 27, 2006

For the uninitiated, Three Times presents an ideal primer, a condensed K-Tel collection of themes that have consistently reappeared throughout Hou Hsiao-hsien's career.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Apr 27, 2006

Three Times is anchored by the performance of Shu Qi.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 26, 2006

A trilogy of desire from the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien in which the same actress and actor play variations on lovers in three distinct historical periods.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 25, 2006

Is there another filmmaker who can so fluidly celebrate the moment as well as the epoch, and do so in the same shot?

Full Review | Apr 25, 2006

A triptych of unrequited romantic tales.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 17, 2006

Like Wong Kar-wai, Hou's interest in the unspoken nature of desire means his movie is sensually alive to the way love overwhelms and transforms one's experience of the world.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 24, 2005

Synthesizing Hou Hsiao-hsien's ambivalent relationship with time and memory, Three Times forms a handy connecting arc between the Taiwanese helmer's earlier work and the increasingly fragmentary direction of his recent films.

| Dec 24, 2005