A man lies dead in a suburban street, armed police surround a fiat, an Eurasian girl escapes from the scene of the crime, a young photographer snaps the proceedings. The setting is Taipei but it could be any city, anywhere. Edward Yang's latest brainteaser juggles a whole range of characters (including a bored novelist housewife and her weak husband) to paint a cross-portrait of modern urban relations Mingling fantasy with reality,The Terroriser teases its audience with a menace new to Yang's work. The terror of the title is not just urban menace, it is also the emotional kind, inflicted on each other by both friends and enemies Yang presents a complex picture of three couples from different strata's of society in Taipei, paying special attention to two of the women, Cora Miao and Wang An The experience of women in contemporary Taipei society has been a theme in Yang's features to date. Here perhaps they are not as blatant as in That Day on the Beach, but equally well observed and thought provoking.

Of the ‘new' directors from Taiwan, Yang seems to be more consciously influenced by European art house film. Yang has public