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Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Plenty of well-meaning filmmakers advertise emotion without contextualizing it. Hou's latest film feels to me like a masterpiece responding intuitively to a masterpiece. Read more
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: In The Flight of the Red Balloon, the great Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien uses Albert Lamorisse's 1956 masterpiece The Red Balloon as a springboard for his own masterpiece. Read more
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: A relatively slight but sturdy work by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien, this slice of contemporary urban life more or less does for Paris what his Cafe Lumiere did for Tokyo, albeit with less minimalism and more overt emotion. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: What Mr. Hou has done is borrow power and some gentle intimations of a state of grace from one of the most enchanting images in movie history. Read more
Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: More often than not, the red balloon appears as a silent, benevolent witness to ethereal moments that [director] Hou has taken great care to capture. Read more
Scott Tobias, AV Club: Nothing much happens in The Flight Of The Red Balloon, and that's all by design: [director] Hou means to evoke a city and a few of the lonely characters within it, and he does so with consummate grace, affection, and a subtle touch of magic. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Flight looks at the world the way a kid would, taking it all in and sifting for clues. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien knows how to cast a spell of loneliness. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: The great Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien expands on the bright, drifty loveliness of Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic, The Red Balloon, in Flight of the Red Balloon. Read more
Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: Lamorisse's film was a third of this length, and was lighter than air. Hou's is about the weight of air itself on a muggy day, and whether that sustains over 113 minutes will be between each viewer and his attention span. Read more
John Anderson, Newsday: Hou Hsiao-hsien's first French-language film shows why the Taiwanese master is considered one of the world's great filmmakers. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: This Red Balloon is gorgeously photographed, and finely acted; like the first film, it gives its plaything a real, solid dimensionality. But despite its title, it never really soars. Read more
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: [Hou Hsiao-hsien] may well have created a future classic of his own Read more
V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Fans of Hou know just what to expect from his slow, contemplative films - and they won't be disappointed. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A work of tremendous precision and heartfelt emotion, made by one of the great artists in the medium. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: This is a transportive picture, the kind with the power to carry you outside of yourself; it is itself a flotation device. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Binoche's energy, invention and concentration are phenomenal. Read more
Rob Nelson, Chicago Sun-Times: Even in his most commercial effort, Hou [Hsiao-hsien] has set himself an impressively daunting artistic challenge. Read more
Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: For all its fuss and fury, Flight of the Red Balloon succeeds magnificently, providing not only an artful homage to Lamorisse's Academy Award-winning short, but also a weightlessly floating tour of the French capital. Read more
Philip Marchand, Toronto Star: The story of these people is certainly engaging. The conundrums of art and reality, of reflection and mirror images, presented by the movie are another matter - they seem at times gratuitous. But at least the movie does give us something to think about. Read more
David Jenkins, Time Out: An exceptional piece of filmmaking, intricate, elaborate and exuding warmth and wisdom from its every frame. Read more
Justin Chang, Variety: This eloquent study of loneliness and postmodern drift likely will be received with more admiration than rapture by the helmer's followers. Read more
Aaron Hillis, Village Voice: A magical must-see and a loving tribute to Albert Lamorrisse's 1956 children's classic The Red Balloon... Read more
John Anderson, Washington Post: A work of art on the order of a poem by Yeats or a painting by Rothko. Read more