Tetrady not as good as all the hype

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

chrishend Oh, the horror of it all. The ennui. The angst. The isolation. Must drink ... double shot ... of ... espresso ...Interesting themes, but a borderline unwatchable movie. This thing makes an Antonioni film look like "Indiana Jones". The use of real-time filming (or whatever technique the film school flunkies are calling it) is interesting in spurts, but it was just plain cruel and unusual punishment here. I get the feeling that the individuals who loved this movie are the same ones who would declare a two hour movie of someone peeing pure genius. Thankfully ming-liang had the decency to keep his pure peeing scene to only 4 minutes. I was rivetted wondering how the sound of it would change as we proceeded from the second, to the third, to the fourth minute. Enthralling filmaking.If you enjoy watching paint dry I give this movie my highest recommendation. If you expect even a hint of entertainment value in your films I give it a 3/10.

Latheman-9 There are many who say Marcel Duchamp was the greatest influence in 20th century art, but for better or worse is hotly debated. One can put a commode on a dais in an art gallery and there will be those wearing berets and smoking French cigarettes who will examine it closely as they discuss in hushed and reverent tones the significance of the fact that anyone seated on it would be facing north, or whatever point of the compass a user would happen to be facing. Then there would be others, among whom I would be one, who would look at it and say, "OK. It's a toilet. So what?"Whether you considers Ming-liang Tsai's "The River" a work of cinematic genius exploring the soulessness of modern existence in an urban landscape (see most of the previous comments), or an uncommonly tedious exercise in pointing out the obvious by a self-indulgent director (yes, that's my opinion) is obviously a matter of taste. Personally, I don't need to pay money and walk into a theater to sit through two hours of some Asiatic form of Dogme 95 film-making to know that spiritual ennui is the price extracted for living in today's industrialized world. I can get on the subway where I live and see it all around me, also in real time, and with much better lighting.With very little dialogue, "The River" relies almost exclusively on cinematic technique, often involving images in reflective surfaces to indicate (insert metaphorical reference of your choice here). The film does have the virtue of being made up of extremely well-composed shots, and if viewed strictly from a photographic standpoint, it does have some artistic merit. But on the whole, I find little to recommend this film. There are far better movies out there to be seen. Rating: 3/10.

fabreu Tsai Ming-Liang offers viewers in "The River" an honest chance to take it or leave it right from the first sequence. If you make it through and enjoy (or rather, are puzzled by) this first sequence - a film shooting in a river, depicted in a long, almost real-time pace - you will for sure be caught in his stream, because what follows is simply great, original, surprising, offbeat, funny, alarming and often mind-boggling. Tsai is a Taiwan filmmaker whose cinematic grammar apparently owes a lot to Westerners - especially to Europeans. You can spot Truffaut in his love for his characters, in the way he always casts his favorite actor Lee kang-Sheng much in the way Truffaut did with Jean-Pierre Léaud, and in the mysterious and surprising ways love expresses itself in his films. You can feel the influence of Antonioni in the long sequences without dialogue or music, in the urban chaos leading to lack of communication between the characters, in the forces of nature (the heavy constant rain, the omnipresence of water in this case) responding to "civilization's" abuse - the echologic chaos. You can feel a touch of the Godard of "Le Mépris" in the total lack of communication between very close people (the couple in Godard, the family here) and the kind of non-conform sexuality of the Pasolini of "Teorema" (sexual repression and catharsis among the family members, in both cases). But Tsai has got something all his own. I've seen now all his feature films and it's very impressive to see how he has developed a language of his own, through his imagery, his pace, his actors' performances, his conflicts, his endings. He is sure to always include unforgettable sequences (here, for sure, the sequence in the sauna between father and son) that will haunt you, delight you, disgust you, move you and stay with you long after you've left the theatre. That's a rare accomplishment in any visual arts these days. For me, "The River" is surely Tsai's masterpiece to date, a film that flows slowly, harmoniously, hauntingly, effortlessly to its destination, catches you in its stream, and leads you to a free-meaning ending - which, in this case, is something warmly welcome.

xuck While most of Chinese/Taiwanese film directors spend their effort on the past legend,Tsai focuses on the present city life scene.It's always an unhappy challenge to deal with Reality and it needs a lots of guts.And Tsai does it faithfully. The father and son's love/hate complex is not a surprise in the asian society.This is more than a homosexual movie. While Lee An is trying too hard for the happy ending, Tsai is more interested in individual identity that has long been a fatal conflict in most asian families.