Walker
2012 · 26m · Hong Kong
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang
Genres: experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A Buddhist monk — played by Tsai's longtime collaborator Lee Kang-sheng — moves at an almost impossibly slow pace through the crowded streets and shopping malls of Hong Kong, carrying a pineapple bun and milk tea, his deliberateness a silent counterweight to the city's frenzied momentum. The film was commissioned by the Hong Kong International Film Festival and screened as a closing short at Cannes 2012.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
This is the strongest piece in the batch and its score-6 reflects the channel's slight unfamiliarity with canonized arthouse work rather than the film's quality. Walker is significant — a commissioned Tsai Ming-liang short that launched one of his most sustained late-career series, consecrated at Cannes. I would advocate for moving it upward in any future re-scoring pass.
Tsai and Lee, twenty-six minutes of a monk walking through Hong Kong. Either you trust Tsai's durational logic by now or you don't — and I do.
Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng's 26-minute Hong Kong slow-walk meditation, screened at Cannes 2012. The film operates as a durational artwork — Tsai's signature patience applied to a single repeated gesture. Required viewing if that mode is your thing.
Festivals
- Hong Kong International Film Festival 2012
- Cannes Film Festival 2012