Series of the Walker: Short Films

Lee Kang-Sheng, long-time collaborator and lead actor in all of the director's films, travels the world portraying a walking monk. The figure is inspired by Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk from the Tang dynasty who walked thousands of kilometers between China and India.

Program:

No Form (2012, 20')
Hsiao Kang passes by the Ay-Chung rice flour noodle shop at the Shilin night market and enters a blank space. We do not know where he comes from or where he is going. It’s a mobile phone commercial in which the product doesn’t even appear. After the film premiered in Macau, the product was withdrawn even before it reached the shelves.

Walker (Taiwan-Hong Kong, 2012, 20')
Having grown up with Hong Kong's pop culture, Tsai decided to pay homage to it by making Walker, contrasting the slowness of the walker with the frantic pace of cosmopolitan life in Hong Kong. The film ends with a song by Hong Kong actor and singer Samuel Hui, Tsai’s idol in his youth.

Diamond Sutra (2012, 21')
In 2012, Taiwanese architects Michael Lin and Liao Wei-li invited Tsai to make short films for their exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Using the space from their previous exhibition in Taiwan, Tsai made two short films, Diamond Sutra and Sleepwalk, based on the concept of the "Walker". Tsai said that watching the steam rise from a rice cooker reminded him of his mother’s face as she lay dying, exhaling her last breath.

Sleepwalk (2012, 21')
In 2012, Taiwanese architects Michael Lin and Liao Wei-li invited Tsai to create short films for their exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Using the space from their previous exhibition in Taiwan, Tsai made two short films, Diamond Sutra and Sleepwalk, based on the concept of the "Walker". Tsai said that watching the steam rise from a rice cooker reminded him of his mother’s face as she lay dying, exhaling her last breath.

Walking on Water (2013, 29')
In 2013, Tsai was invited by filmmaker Tan Chui Mui to create a short film for an anthology movie, Letters from the South. Tsai returned to his hometown of Kuching (Malaysia) and made the film Walker in the house of his childhood. The seven-story building, which held the happy memories of his youth, is now inhabited by strangers. His old neighbor, an older girl who used to bathe and feed him as a child, has also grown old.