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In the audience is a gay Japanese man. Only two other people watch the 1961 Kung-Fu classic Dragon Inn by King Hu, considered one of the best martial arts films of all time. A woman with a clubbed foot runs the ticket booth and hobbles around the empty theatre, hoping that the projectionist will notice her but he makes a special point of looking the other way. We soon discover that the two older men watching the movie were the stars of Dragon Inn, basking in their glory days. It is not clear whether or not they are real or spirits from the past, yet now they sit in the almost empty theatre watching their own movie and begin to cry. When the lights come up, there is only row upon row of empty seats. Tsai Ming-liang is known for his minimalist cinema and Goodbye Dragon Inn stretches the style to its outer limits. There is no dialogue until about 45 minutes into the film and then no more until about 20 minutes after that. Though the mood is somber, Goodbye Dragon Inn has a deadpan humour that redeems its sense of desperation and a humanism that raises our hopes. Fashioned with poetic solitude and emotional power, Goodbye Dragon Inn is a haunting elegy for a way of life that survives only in the minds of ghosts and old film critics.
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