Goodbye, Dragon Inn is Tsai Ming-liang’s sharpest combination of his major themes—rain, missed connections, and the poetry of loneliness—here juxtaposed against something more unexpected: a martial arts film. It’s a rainy night in Taipei, and the crumbling neighborhood kino-barn is showing King Hu’s swordplay classic Dragon Inn. It’s all action on-screen, but life (and our attempts to enliven it) stumbles on off-screen. Visualizing the fantasies of anyone who’s ever worked in a movie theater, or just adored being in one, Goodbye, Dragon Inn underscores the essence of why people watch films: to be reminded of what it is to live, and what it means to dream.