Technically, The Puppetmaster is supremely beautiful to watch, with long shots, natural sound and scarcely a close-up on display. Emotionally too the film has a special power, since Li's story is hardly undramatic.

[Demonstrates] a profound and original sense of motion pictures as a way of exploring the passage of time.

Hou Hsiao-hsien remains a master at conveying movement, progression, and a sense of the inexorable rotations of the wheel of time.

[Hou Hsiao-hsien] is just as marvelous as everyone says.