GOODBYE, DRAGON INN aka BU SAN

Year: 2003
USA: Wellspring Media
UK: NFT
Cast: Lee Kang-Sheng, Chen Shiang-Chyi, Mitamura Kiyonobu, Miao Tien, Shih Chun, Yang Kuei-Mei, Chen Chao-Jung, Lee Yi-Cheung
Director: Tsai Ming-liang
Country: Taiwan
Languages: Mandarin / Taiwanese (English subtitles)
USA: 81 mins
UK: 82 mins
USA Release Date: 17 September 2004 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 25 October 2004 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 8 October 2004 (Limited Release - London)
US Distributor

Synopsis

On the last night before the old movie theater is shut down, a young Japanese, despite the hard rain, comes running into the theater. The theater seems empty, void of life; yet there are some people, and some may not be people...

A crippled female ticket clerk and a young projectionist, working in the same theater, day after day, always unable to meet each other. Until on the last night, the clerk half her peach shaped fortune bun and holding it like a heart, she walks to the projection room, only to find that he's still not there. Yet without one last look, she won't go away. She goes looking for him through another passageway into the labyrinth-like theater. The two still don't meet. So the movie is over, the people leave, and the door is closed... The young projectionist sees that the clerk did not take her steam rice cooker with her. Looking inside, the cooker is still steaming the peach bun, so he goes after her...

Before the show was over, the gigantic screen was actually playing the hit movie from 36 years ago called DRAGON INN... the flash of the sword and the feel of the heat. The young Japanese man who came in the theater in search of other homosexuals to be with runs into someone who looks exactly like the swordsman on the screen. Yet they are old now, sitting in the dark and empty theater, watching their own movie, they cry... Are they real or are they spirits that don't want to leave?