Walking Tours with Tsai Ming-liang

Nearly all the films in the series were produced upon invitation by a local festival or organization. And yet, despite its commissioned nature, the project does not feel influenced or compromised, and any discernible changes from film to film have less to do with the requirements of a respective instalment’s sponsor than with Tsai’s evolving interests and goals. We frequently find the walker in unassuming side streets, underpasses, and bus stops. These are not places you’d expect a film festival or tourism board to ask a renowned filmmaker to showcase if its desire was to increase visibility and visitor numbers. The films do, however, promote their own kind of tourism, removed from, if not in stark opposition to, the rhythms of contemporary life.