REBELS OF THE NEON GOD | FOMO Secret Cinema Tbilisi - Asian Film Week

REBELS OF THE NEON GOD

Tsai Ming-liang | 1992 | Taiwan | 1h46m | Mandarin with English subtitles

REBELS OF THE NEON GOD is Tsai Ming-liang’s debut feature, but it already contains many of the ideas that would define his career. Young people drift through Taipei, moving between arcades, motorbikes, cheap rooms and flooded interiors, unable to settle into relationships, work or any clear sense of direction.

What makes the film so memorable is the way the city is photographed. Neon signs, fluorescent light and reflected colour break across streets and interiors, giving Taipei a fractured glow that feels both beautiful and slightly unreal. The urban landscape is not just background. It seems to press in on the characters, surrounding their boredom, anger and desire with colour that is constantly shifting around them.

At the centre is Lee Kang-sheng, whose withdrawn performance began one of the most important director-actor collaborations in modern Asian cinema. Tsai would continue working with him for decades, repeatedly returning to the same face, body and silences as both actor and filmmaker grew older together.

The Neon God in the title refers to Nezha, a rebellious deity from Chinese mythology, and that connection gives the film an extra layer. These characters are not rebels in any heroic sense. They are restless, frustrated and often self-destructive, young people pushing against family, routine and the city itself without knowing what they want instead.

More than thirty years later, REBELS OF THE NEON GOD still feels immediate. It captures a specific moment in early-1990s Taipei, but its mix of loneliness, youth, desire and urban drift has aged remarkably well. It is a film about people trying to connect while everything around them keeps moving.

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.