Another early Hsiao-Hsien Hou film that reveals his great capacity for tenderness and for getting deep inside the family psyche, in this case a family living on the margins. Lin is the "Daughter of the Nile" of the title, a fantasy character in a graphic novel she's reading. In reality she's the oldest sister in a family of petty criminals, struggling with her education as well as her background and almost everything is seen through her eyes.
The plot hardly matters; this is an observation of life in a very westernized Taipei in the eighties; we could be almost anywhere in America or in any UK city where people steal for a living and call it work and even back in the eighties it was clear that Hsiao-Hsien was a master filmmaker and a great director of actors. The performances here are beautifully naturalistic with Lin Yang outstanding in the lead. It's a little rough around the edges, perhaps and maybe a little too indebted to Ozu's style of filmmaking but it remains an essential work in the director's canon nevertheless and shouldn't be missed.
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