Confucian Confusion / Mahjong: Two Films by Edward Yang (Blu-ray)

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.

TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restorations, with 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
• Excerpts of director Edward Yang speaking after a 1994 screening of A Confucian Confusion
• New interview with editor Chen Po-wen
• New conversation between Chinese-cultural-studies scholar Michael Berry and film critic Justin Chang
• Performance of Yang’s 1992 play Likely Consequence
• PLUS: An essay by film programmer and critic Dennis Lim and a 1994 director’s note on A Confucian Confusion