Flashback: Daughter of the Nile (1987) – Hou Hsiao-hsien’s dysfunctional family drama a snapshot of Taipei in transition
Overlooked until a recent digital restoration, the film demonstrates many of the director’s strengths; unlike his other work around that time, it is set in contemporary Taipei rather than Taiwan’s rural past
Coming between a trio of movies that dealt with coming of age in rural Taiwan and epic A City of Sadness (1989), Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 1987 drama Daughter of the Nile was overlooked until this digitally restored version started to appear at film festivals.
But the film is certainly more than a curio, demonstrating many of the strengths of the master director (his understanding of everyday people, his insight into the social changes that have occurred in Taiwan), as well as his aestheticised style. It was an unusual work for Hou at the time, casting a critical eye over contemporary Taipei rather than focusing on rural areas and historical contexts. Hou would not return to the modern-day city until his less successful Millennium Mambo in 2001.
Daughter of the Nile covers similar ground to fellow director Edward Yang De-chang’s better-known Taipei Story (1985), in which Hou played the main character. Both films deal with the confusion that Westernisation was wreaking on the city, and the difficulties of squaring traditional Chinese values
with modernity.
Whereas Yang’s characters are middle class and suffering from listless ennui, Hou’s are working people who respond to the changes with hedonism, crass consumerism and decadence. Both films prominently feature the city of Taipei, but Yang’s is situated in new developments and upmarket bars, while Hou’s is set in garish nightclubs and a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.
