One of the most surprising restrictions Hou imposes on himself is his minimal use of the shot/reverse-shot. Other aspects of his style factor in here --- the long take, the refusal of the close-up --- testifying to the interconnectedness of all these characteristics (reading the section on the locked-in camera axis before this would be helpful here). It also reveals the distance between Hou's and Ozu's styles, because the basis of Ozu's style is the graphically matched reverse-shot. By way of contrast, City of Sadness contains only six moments which could be considered the shot-reverse shot figure. Most of these are simply perfect 90-degree shifts around a dinner table (see for example, B 5:05-6:18), but as exceptions the shot-reverse shots often come at strategic moments that integrate other aspects of his style.
This principle is at work in Hou's other films, as illustrated by the following scene from Summer at Grandpa's which combines the tendency to lock the camera onto a set axis and an unusual 180 degree reverse shot. The home's stairway forms a locus for two camera axes that are introduced near the beginning of the film, as can be seen in the photographs in the right-hand frame. Each looks past the unusual foot of the stairway from opposite directions. Shots throughout the film use these two views. One of Summer at Grandpa's few shot/reverse shots makes a perfect 180 degree jump between these two views (press here to view these shots in the frame).
A significant instance of this in City of Sadness is found in the wedding scene, which is particularly fascinating for formal reasons. Containing four long-takes, this sequence is staged "incorrectly" by the standards of classical style, but it obeys the rules we have been discussing for Hou's films. The shot plan below shows the positioning of the camera for each shot.
Clicking on the camera positions produces images from that POV in the right-hand frame.
The wedding party enters the first shot and begins the ceremony on the other side of the glass wall (B 20:39-21:11). The couple faces the shrine, with their backs toward the camera.
A reverse shot shows a "perfectly" composed view of the couple standing before the alter (B 21:11-21:56).
Because it is both a reverse shot and a closer view of the couple, the shot initially seems like a typical strategy for singling out protagonists, for encouraging our identification with them. However, every time the couple bows they drop nearly completely below the frame, revealing their family overseeing the ceremony in the background. The mundane reverse shot turns out to be a typical shot emphasizing the context of the family.
This is, in turn, followed by another reverse shot of the bowing couple, yet containing rather odd, "improper" composition (B 21:56-22:23).
Because shot 2 shows the bride and groom facing the left-hand side of the frame, classical rules would dictate that the reverse shot over their shoulders would basically duplicate the eye line: they would be placed on the right, looking left into the center of the frame. However, while shot 3 reverses the angle to a view of the couple's backside, it is nudged to the right so that the groom is now in edging into off-screen space and the bride looks left at the side of the frame. In the center of the frame the patriarch of the family sits, watching the proceedings with approval.
This reverse shot is "wrong" in the sense that the camera is turned slightly too far to the right (thus cutting off the groom and allowing no on-screen space for the bride to look into); a classically composed shot would put the father to the left of the couple (in the space they face). On the other hand, it is quite correct in the context of Hou's style in two senses. First, it emphasizes the domestic and familial circumstances in which the action takes place. The mise-en-scene focuses our attention on the father and his new daughter-in-law, expanding the narrative scope of the wedding to include the entire family; in other words, it emphasizes context rather than the individual.
A second, more compelling, reason it is not "wrong" relates to Hou's peculiar penchant for snapping the camera into the same angle every time he returns to a set. The reverse shot that follows shot 2 ignores the needs of classical narrative that would dictate we see the two main characters framed in a similar (centered) manner from each angle. Instead, it responds to the Hou's own rules, locking into the axis defined by shot 1, which "naturally" relegates the groom to off-screen space and the bride to the left-hand side of the frame. Furthermore, the fourth and last shot of the scene replicates the view of shot 1 and represents a perfect jump backward along the axis from shot 3. This scene is wrong only in the classical sense of narrative space, while it obeys the laws of editing intrinsic to Hou's style (B 22:23- 23:01).