GOODBYE, DRAGON INN
Tsai Ming-liang | 2003 | Taiwan | 1h22m | Mandarin with English subtitles
GOODBYE, DRAGON INN begins with a simple premise. A Taipei cinema is about to close. On its final night, it screens King Hu’s DRAGON INN to a sparse audience while staff and strangers drift through corridors, bathrooms, stairwells and rows of empty seats.
Tsai Ming-liang filmed GOODBYE, DRAGON INN inside Taipei’s Fu-Ho Grand Theater after learning that the cinema itself was closing. That history matters because the film is not simply imagining the disappearance of a movie house. It was made inside one that really was nearing the end of its life.
There is very little dialogue. Tsai instead pays attention to footsteps, rain, projection light, empty seats, long corridors and the peculiar behaviour of people sharing a dark public space. There is awkward cruising, strange encounters and very dry humour alongside the melancholy, so the film never becomes a solemn exercise in nostalgia.
Miao Tien and Shih Chun, actors from the original DRAGON INN, appear in the audience. Their presence gives the film an added emotional charge, especially once you realise they are sitting in a cinema watching a film they made decades earlier.
GOODBYE, DRAGON INN won the FIPRESCI critics’ prize at Venice and has since become one of Tsai Ming-liang’s best-known films. More importantly for this programme, it is one of the great films about cinema-going itself, and about what disappears when the places where we watch films begin to vanish.
Watching it immediately after DRAGON INN lets you experience the connection between the two films directly. The first screening gives you King Hu’s original as a living piece of cinema. The second asks what happens when that same film survives into another era, viewed by a dwindling audience inside a cinema that is closing around them.
ABOUT ASIAN FILM WEEK
Asian Film Week is exactly the kind of programming FOMO exists for: major classics, cult discoveries and films you rarely get the chance to see on a cinema screen in Tbilisi. This week has been curated with Denis from Ukraine, a FOMO Film Club lifetime member with a real passion for Asian cinema, whose recommendations helped fill some gaps in my own knowledge and pushed the programme in directions I might not have reached alone.
A lot of care has gone into making the week feel broad, balanced and genuinely worth exploring. You’ll find landmark films from directors already well known in the West alongside stranger, more underground work that deserves a much wider audience. If Asian cinema is already your thing, I hope there are still a few surprises here. If it isn’t, I hope this week gives you a great place to start.
10% OFF FOOD, PLUS GROUP DEALS
Dinner before a film at FOMO is now sorted! We’ve arranged special offers with our two favourite places to eat in Bazari Orbeliani, both right next door to FOMO:
10% off at La Focacceria
20% off at Potato Factory
Potato Factory 2+1: buy two and get one free
Potato Factory 3+2: buy three and get two free
Simply show your Fienta ticket when ordering.
You’re welcome to eat in the Sherekilebi Bar at FOMO Secret Cinema or upstairs at FOMO Open-Air Cinema. Tell them where you’ll be sitting and they’ll bring your food to you.
FOOD AND DRINK POLICY: SHEREKILEBI Bar in FOMO Cinema opens 1 hour before the first screening of the day and closes at 01:30, serving a wide selection of beer, wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic refreshments, as well as fresh hot popcorn! Outside food is allowed in the bar but not in the cinema. No alcohol or drinks from outside allowed. All guests are invited to arrive early and stay late!
LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.
HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to Level 1. Signage on the door. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTMzMTA2Mjk0MDI5MjM1
REFUND & CREDIT POLICY: If FOMO cancels a screening, all ticket holders will receive a full refund. If your plans change and you can no longer attend, we’ll issue you a credit for the value of your ticket, which can be used for any FOMO film screening within the following 30 days.
TICKETS are also available to purchase over the bar if not sold out.
FOMO Secret Cinema • Bazari Orbeliani, 0105 Tbilisi, Georgia
