Press Release Criterion Press Release: A Confucian Confusion / Mahjong: Two Films by Edward Yang (1994-1996) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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In this pair of sharp, sprawling satires, one of Taiwan’s most celebrated filmmakers, Edward Yang, captures the anything-can-happen mood of Taipei at the end of the twentieth century. Made in between his epic dramas A Brighter Summer Day and Yi Yi, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong find Yang applying a lighter but no less masterly touch to his explorations of human relationships in an increasingly globalized, hypercapitalistic world. These intricately constructed ensemble comedies—one set in a cutthroat corporate milieu, the other in a shady criminal underworld—reveal the absurdity and cynicism at the heart of modern urban life.

FILM INFO​

• Spine #1275
  
  

  FILMS IN THIS SET​

  • • 
      A Confucian Confusion
      
      1994
      Edward Yang’s first foray into comedy may have been a surprising stylistic departure, but in its richly novelistic vision of urban discontent, it is quintessential Yang. This relationship roundelay centers on a coterie of young Taipei professionals whose paths converge at an entertainment company where the boundaries between art and commerce, love and business, have become hopelessly blurred. Evoking the chaos of a city infiltrated by Western chains, logos, and attitudes, A Confucian Confusion is an incisive reflection on the role of traditional values in a materialistic, amoral society.
    • 
      Mahjong
      
      1996
      Edward Yang’s follow-up to A Confucian Confusionis another dizzying comedy set in a globalized Taipei, but with a darker, more caustic edge. Amid a rapidly changing cityscape, the lives of a disparate group of swindlers, hustlers, gangsters, and expats collide, with a naive French teenager (Virginie Ledoyen) and a sensitive young local (Lawrence Ko) who tries to protect her caught dangerously in the middle. By turns brutal, shocking, tender, and bitingly funny, Mahjong is a dazzling vision of a multicultural Taipei where nearly every relationship has a price and newfound prosperity comes at the expense of the human soul.
      
      
      
      
      August 19, 2025

 

[Ronald Epstein]

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https://www.amazon.com/Confucian-Confusion-Mahjong-Criterion-Collection/dp/B0F96R7Y84

 

[Patrick McCart]

Really excited for this - I loved Yang's Taipei Story, A Brighter Summer Day, and Yi Yi.