Cities of Last Things

Cities of Last Things (幸福城市, 2018) is a genre-blending Taiwanese drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Ho Wi Ding structures the film as three novellas — each set in a different era, told in reverse chronological order. One man, Zhang Dong Ling, and three nights that define him.

Each chapter carries its own tone: the first a neon-lit near-future crime story set in a dystopian Taipei, the second a quiet domestic drama, the third edging into science fiction. Actor Lee Hong-chi holds all three across radically different registers. What starts as a cold crime narrative gradually pulls back toward an origin story — by the final frames, you understand exactly how everything that opened the film came to be.

Ho Wi Ding, a Malaysian-born filmmaker working in the Taiwanese tradition, made this as his feature debut. Co-produced with France, South Korea, and Singapore, it premiered at TIFF 2018. Watch Cities of Last Things on iFILM.