Tsai Ming-liang

Known for Directing

Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese: 蔡明亮, Pinyin: Cài Míngliàng; born October 27, 1957) is a Malaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker. He has written and directed 11 feature films and has also directed many short films, television films, documentaries and art installations. Tsai is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese cinema. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous film festival awards.

Born

October 27, 1957 (age 68)

Birthplace

Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Filmography

128 films, 4 shows

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Night Journey

2025 · 38m

country: Czech Republic

A sleeping city, streets without people. A figure in a red robe walks slowly — across a carpet of leaves, over cobblestones, along the cold pavement. Autumn night fog descends upon the city. In the cinema, people watch the monk’s slow steps and fall asleep. Can phantoms meet and understand each other? Night Journey was created in just ten days through a collaboration between Tsai Ming-liang and FAMU students — a tribute to cinema and to Jihlava as a place of silent dreaming.

TMDB3.8

Back Home

2025 · 1h 5m

country: Taiwan

Tsai Ming-liang's new film, Back Home, depicts Anong Houngheuangsy and the daily life of his home village in Laos. We witness buildings in varying states of habitation and disrepair, farm animals, rice fields, religious sites, domestic scenes, a sun-dappled food market, and a dog adorably trying (and failing) to escape a carnival ride.

TMDB3.5

Abiding Nowhere

2024 · 1h 19m

country: United States

The walker with the shaved head and dressed in a red robe is barefoot. He walks slowly but determinedly through the forest, over stones and grassland. He also makes his way through the shadows of trees and houses. He sets foot in the train station, the church and the museum. The sun rises and sets again. The walker passes through Washington, D.C. Another stranger is also on the move in the city. We are unsure whether or not he is following the walker.

Xining Public Housing

2024 · 1h 3m

country: Taiwan

The Xining Public Housing complex in Taipei, built in 1983, houses more than 1,000 residents. Tsai Ming-liang filmed his first television drama and his feature The Hole (1998) here. Tsai Ming-liang quietly observes the complex, set to be demolished soon, and the daily lives of its people.

Yilan

2023 · 1h

country: Taiwan

According to Tsai, “I chose to film Yilan’s Nanguan Market, the breakfast store next to the city god temple, the clay oven roll shop on Fuxing Road, and the mountains, water and paddy fields. To me, these are part of the architects’ everyday life. What makes Fieldoffice Architects precious is that they never do their work behind closed doors. Instead, their works are deeply guided by Yilan’s landscape and local customs, and are informed by their passion and love as artists.”

Strolling Around

2023 · 16m

country: Taiwan

At that time, we sat on the first floor of the Social Welfare Hall, eating the Lao Wu charcoal grilled salty crispy cakes brought by Wenrui from Fuxing Road, Yilan, and looking at the sparse crowds of people on Tongqing Street, the trees swaying in the wind, and the Yilan River flowing not far away. Tsai Ming-liang said: "Sheng-Yuan tells me that apart from the buildings in the middle of the field providing shelter from the wind and rain and living functions, he also hoped that the people inside would look out and see the mountains, the water, the trees, the weeds, the rice paddies, the gullies, and the flying birds that we have. Let's stroll around and see how happy we are.”

Where

2022 · 1h 31m

country: Taiwan

The ninth opus of his Walker Films series, which was shot at Centre Pompidou.

Where Do You Stand, Tsai Ming-liang?

2022 · 21m

country: France

"For reasons of health, Lee Kang-sheng and I moved to the mountains. We don't have any neighbors. Our house is part of a row of dilapidated houses. I love these abandoned houses. I often walk around in them casually. I think they are beautiful. I said to Lee Kang-sheng: we don't have to go elsewhere to make films anymore. I'll make all my remaining films right here. I got some old chairs and some of my paintings and arranged them in these abandoned houses. And thus, this film was made." Tsai Ming-liang

TMDB3.4

Wandering

2021 · 34m

country: Taiwan

This short by Tsai Ming-liang, completed in 2021, was filmed at "the Dune" in Yilan, Taiwan, where the eight films in his Walker series were being shown.

The Moon and the Tree

2021 · 34m

country: Taiwan

Follows the lives of two big stars in Taiwan. Since a failed spine surgery 40 years ago, Lee Pei-jing, known as the “Moon singer”, has been confined to a wheelchair. Actor Chang Feng is reaching one hundred years old. Tsai describes Chang as a tree, which looks ever more beautiful as it grows old.

TMDB3.0

The Night

2021 · 20m

country: Taiwan

In 2019, the night in Hong Kong was still in fascinating beauty and the landscape of everyday life was gradually changing. Travelling the streets, Tsai Ming-liang documented the city's rhythm and ambience, along with an overpass.

TMDB3.2

Days

2021 · 2h 6m

country: Taiwan

Kang lives alone in a big house, Non in a small apartment in town. They meet, and then part, their days flowing on as before.

TMDB3.5

Light

2018 · 18m

country: Taiwan

"The very first Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival was held here at Zhongshan Hall. During my university days, I volunteered as a ticket seller in order to watch films for free. Many years later, I received the top award at the Taipei Film Festival in an award ceremony held here as well. I have also run a coffeehouse here and often held small screenings of classic films during that time. Last year, I shot my film, Your Face, inside Guangfu Auditorium. The film was composed of thirteen big close-ups. Each of those thirteen faces was filled with the passage of time. Now, I am given a chance to film Zhongshan Hall again. I switched off all the lights and allowed the warm winter sun to shine on her face."

TMDB3.4

Your Face

2018 · 1h 16m

country: France

Composed of a series of portrait shots of mostly anonymous individuals, filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang's digital experiment turns the human face into a subject of dramatic intrigue.

Sand

2018 · 1h 21m

country: Taiwan

In 2018, Tsai Ming-Liang was invited by the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area Administration to make this film, his eighth in the "Walker" series. In the constant passage of time, the Zen-like footsteps of the Walker has finally allowed us to see the Pacific Ocean, the open sky, the seagulls, the black sand, an eel catching settlement that arose in the cold winter rain, the twisting branches of the lintou trees, flotsam piled up like mountains, and a newly constructed cement house, which seems to offer a temporary place of rest for the Walker. "Sand" premiered together with the opening of the Zhuangwei Dune Visitor Center.

TMDB3.5

The Deserted

2018 · 55m

country: Taiwan

Tsai Ming-Liang, the artisan of cinematography approaches virtual reality, pushing the boundaries of VR film. The Deserted stripped away traditional film techniques and is presented in 360 degrees, like a theatre. The viewer is placed in the scene and is allowed to look freely at the construction of the environment. And immersed in the handcraft of the scenes.

One & Zero

2016 · 1h 20m

country: Unknown

Tsai Ming-liang has been living in an abandoned house in the mountains since 2014. Around the same time, his persona, actor Lee Kang-sheng, wanted to quit acting due to severe spinal pains. Tsai decided to capture Lee Kang-sheng's face as well as the home, skies, trees, and abandoned ruins that surround him.

Autumn Days

2016 · 24m

country: Taiwan

A documentary about Nogami Teruyo, who for nearly half a century stood by Akira Kurosawa as a screenwriting collaborator, a script supervisor, and a companion.

TMDB3.6

Afternoon

2015 · 2h 17m

country: Taiwan

Lush jungle and a building in ruins are the ideal stage for a film-confession that defies storytelling and goes beyond conversation on cinema. Tsai Ming-Liang and his actor Lee Kang-sheng confess and put on stage a pièce in which attention and slowness are in tune with the rhythm of memory. The unveiling of Tsai Ming-liang’s filmmaking: from Stray Dogs to the most intimate notes of the director-actor relationship.

TMDB3.0

No No Sleep

2015 · 34m

country: Hong Kong

In 2015, Tsai Ming-Liang was once again invited by the Hong Kong International Film Festival to make the opening short film. This time, he selected Shibuya station in Tokyo as his main filming location and invited the famous Japanese actor Masanobu Ando to appear alongside Lee Kang-Sheng. They sleep separately at a capsule hotel and cleanse themselves at a public bath. Their fatigued bodies yearn for sleep but restless minds keep them for falling asleep. "No No Sleep" won the Best Director Award at the Taipei Film Festival.

Beautiful 2015

2015 · 2h

country: Hong Kong

Understanding "beauty" for 2015... From Beijing, Huang Jianxin wonders if it's nobler to sleep or not to sleep in Insomniac Diary. In London, Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Tenant tells the misadventures of an Iranian boy trying not to lose his bed-sit. With Three Days After My Death, Yim Ho creates a parable: a woman who wants to die must save someone's life before her death wish be granted. Tsai Ming-Liang returns with No No Sleep, where bare-footed Lee Kang-Sheng walks Tokyo streets in the depth of winter.

TMDB3.1

Journey to the West

2014 · 56m

country: France

In 2014, Tsai Ming-Liang was invited to make a film for the MarseilleFID, Marseille International Film Festival. Since he was not familiar with Marseille, he decided to make a film as tourist, capturing the beautiful Mediterranean sunshine in the late summer of that year. He also invited famous French actor, Denis Lavant, to appear alongside Lee Kang-Sheng playing Xuanzang. "Journey to the West" was invited to be the opening short film at the Berlin International Film Festival the same year.

TMDB3.1

Stray Dogs

2014 · 2h 18m

country: Taiwan

An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.

TMDB2.7

Letters from the South

2013 · 1h 45m

country: China

Six filmmakers present six short films about the experiences of Chinese immigrants. Shot across Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar, the anthology depicts the crisis of identity that accompanies international migration.

TMDB3.0

Walker

2012 · 26m

country: Hong Kong

In 2012, the Hong Kong International Film Festival invited Tsai Ming-Ling to make the opening short film. Having grown up with Hong Kong's popular culture, Tsai Ming-Liang decided to pay homage by making a "Walker" film, contrasting the Walker's slowness with the frenzied pace of Hong Kong's cosmopolitan life. The film ends with a song by Hong Kong actor and singer Samuel Hui, who was Tsai Ming-Liang's idol during his youth. The film was invited to be the closing short film for the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.

Diamond Sutra

2012 · 20m

country: Taiwan

In 2012, Taiwanese architects Michael Lin and Liao Wei-li invited Tsai Ming-Liang to create moving visuals for their exhibit at the Venise Architecture Biennale. Using the space at their preview exhibition in Taiwan, Tsai Ming-Liang made two short films, "Sleepwalk" and "Diamond Sutra", using the "Walker" concept. "Diamond Sutra" was later selected to be the opening short film for the Venise Film Festival. Tsai-Ming Liang said that gazing at the steam rising from a rice cooker reminded him of his mother's face as she laid dying, exhaling her final breath.

Sleepwalk

2012 · 20m

country: Taiwan

A continuation of Tsai Ming-Liang's Walker series, featuring Lee Kang-Sheng as a barefoot monk who walks very slowly.

No Form

2012 · 20m

country: Taiwan

In 2011, Tsai Ming-Liang staged a play, "Only You", for Taiwan's National Theater and Concert Hall. In it, there was a powerfully moving scene where monk Xuanzang walked at an extremely slow pace for half an hour. Lamenting the transient nature of theater, Tsai decided to make a movie out of this slow-walking performance, "No Form", the first of his "Walker Films" series.

TMDB2.6

Beautiful 2012

2012 · 1h 30m

country: Taiwan

A collection of shorts by four East Asian directors: Ann Hui on a male-to-female sex change, Kim Tae-yong on an emotional imposture, Gu Changwei on pregnancy in China and Tsai Ming-Liang on time and the city of Hong Kong.

Transformation

2012 · 34m

country: Taiwan

In order to recreate a photograph, two actors undergo a transformation.

TMDB2.7

Visage

2009 · 2h 18m

country: France

Hsiao-Kang, a Taiwanese film director, travels to the Louvre in Paris, France, to shoot a film that explores the Salomé myth.

TMDB3.0

Madame Butterfly

2009 · 36m

country: France

Free interpretation of the myth. Tsai Ming-liang propels a woman neglected by her lover in the mob of the bus station of Kuala Lumpur.

TMDB2.9

Sleeping on Dark Waters

2008 · 53m

country: Unknown

A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Ming-liang Tsai’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone.

TMDB3.3

To Each His Own Cinema

2007 · 1h 40m

country: France

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

It's a Dream

2007 · 15m

country: Malaysia

Shot in an abandoned cinema in Malaysia, Tsai Ming-Liang's home country, It's a Dream evokes the filmmaker’s earliest encounters with cinema and recalls the golden age of Asian film culture. An extended version of the filmmaker's short created for the Canne Film Festival's "To Each His Own Cinema".

TMDB3.3

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone

2006 · 1h 58m

country: Taiwan

Rawang, an immigrant from Bangladesh living in awful conditions, takes pity on a Chinese man, Hsiao-kang, who is beaten up and left in the street. Rawang lovingly nurses him on a mattress he found. When he is almost healed, Hsiao-kang meets the waitress Chyi. His love for Rawang is put to the test.

TMDB3.0

The Wayward Cloud

2005 · 1h 54m

country: Taiwan

Hsiao-Kang, now working as an adult movie actor, meets Shiang-chyi once again. Meanwhile, the city of Taipei faces a water shortage that makes the sales of watermelons skyrocket.

TMDB3.0

Welcome to São Paulo

2004 · 1h 36m

country: Brazil

All the feature is given prestige to by the narration in Caetano Veloso's voice, that also signs one of the segments of the project. São Paulo is the largest city of the Southern Hemisphere, with an incessant dynamics of cultural mixtures, with immigrants of all the world and migrants of all parts of Brazil. The gathering of these peculiarities are seen through the 13 film directors's sensibilities and their segments.

Aquarium

2004 · 6m

country: Brazil

Segment of the feature Welcome to São Paulo (2004), produced by São Paulo International Film Festival.

TMDB3.0

My Stinking Kid

2004 · 50m

country: Taiwan

Drama about a young boy who suffers from a rare deficiency disease. The medicine he has to take every day has the side effect of making him reek of ammonia. The consequent bullying and ostracism by schoolmates exacerbates the boy's sense of victimhood. His mother, meanwhile, runs a help-line for parents with comparable problems.

TMDB3.4

Goodbye, Dragon Inn

2003 · 1h 22m

country: Taiwan

On a dark, wet night in Taipei City, a cavernous old picture palace is about to close its doors forever. A meager audience, the remaining few staff, and perhaps even a ghost or two, watch King Hu’s wuxia classic "Dragon Inn", each haunted by memories and desires evoked by cinema itself.

Moonlight in the River

2003 · 8m

country: Taiwan

Tsai Ming-liang designed this short film as a farewell to his friend Simon Field, who was about to leave his position as director of the Rotterdam Festival after eight years in office. The piece follows two dogs roaming the Tamshui River in Taipei, accompanied by the director's voice-over as he reads a written dedication for Field.

TMDB2.9

The Skywalk Is Gone

2002 · 22m

country: France

A young woman wandering around meets a young man going to a casting call for a pornographic film.

TMDB3.5

What Time Is It There?

2001 · 1h 56m

country: France

A street vendor with a grim home-life forges a connection with a young woman on her way to Paris.

TMDB2.6

A Conversation with God

2001 · 30m

country: South Korea

The original subject intended for this film was a spiritual medium who was unbelievably accurate. Tsai Ming-liang jumped on his 50cc motorbike, equipped with a DV camera ready to shoot her, to see whether the god would speak to his camera. But on the way, he was caught in a traffic jam of people gathered at another god’s festival. A man in a trance, flashy karaoke girls on stage, a power black-out. During his diversion, the camera discovers fish and underground passages

TMDB3.5

The Hole

1999 · 1h 35m

country: Taiwan

In the final days of the year 1999, almost everyone in Taiwan has died from a strange plague that ravished the island. As rain pours down relentlessly, a single man is stuck with an unfinished plumbing job and a hole in his floor. This results in a very odd relationship with the woman who lives below him.

TMDB3.4

The River

1997 · 1h 56m

country: Taiwan

A young man develops severe neck pain after swimming in a polluted river for a movie shoot, but nobody can provide him any relief.

TMDB3.6

Vive L'Amour

1995 · 1h 58m

country: Taiwan

Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.

TMDB2.8

My New Friends

1995 · 56m

country: Taiwan

Tsai interrupted his pre-production for The River to make this pioneering documentary for Taiwan's nascent AIDS-awareness campaign. Ignoring instructions to 'play down the gay angle', he centres the film on his own very candid conversations with two HIV+ young men. Sadly the identities of the interviewees have to be concealed, and so the freewheeling camerawork focuses most often on Tsai himself; but the sense of rapport between the director and his 'new friends' is palpable and very moving, even to Western viewers already only too familiar with these issues.

TMDB3.7

Rebels of the Neon God

1994 · 1h 46m

country: Taiwan

In Taipei, four youths face alienation, loneliness, and moments of existential crisis amidst a series of minor crimes.

TMDB3.1

Boys

1991 · 50m

country: Taiwan

A junior-high student bullies and blackmails a younger boy, then receives the same treatment at the hands of some older students.

TMDB3.5

Give Me a Home

1991 · 52m

country: Taiwan

This sociological drama focuses on a construction worker’s family who cannot afford a house of their own, even though the head of the family builds houses.

TMDB2.5

Li-hsiang’s Love Line

1990 · 51m

country: Taiwan

A quiet story that follows the development of a love affair between an unmarried factory worker and the widowed factory manager.

TMDB2.8

All the Corners of the World

1989 · 1h 14m

country: Taiwan

Mr and Mrs Chang live in Taipei's Hsi-Men-Ding (the city's entertainment/red light/nightlife district) with their teenaged kids. The parents work as cleaners in a "love hotel" and send the kids out to work as ticket scalpers, block-buying seats for hit movies like A City of Sadness and reselling them at a profit. Tragedy strikes when the daughter Mei-Hsueh flirts with the idea of prostituting herself and changes her mind at the last moment, leaving her first client with injuries that put him on the critical list. The focus throughout is on the son Ah Tong, who has a latent talent as a writer that is never going to flower.