"millennium mambo" (2001) was hou's fourteenth film and the film that marked his first collaboration with actress shu qi, who would later go on to appear in three other of hou's later films and become his muse. the film follows shu as a character named vicky, who looks back ten years to 2000 when she was in a relationship with hao-hao (chun-hao tuan) where she is now in a relationship with jack (jack kao). the film's free-wheeling style, cinematography and sound design was praised by critics, and also garnered the technical grand prize for the film's sound designer/mixer/director duu-chih tu at the 2001 cannes film festival, where it was also nominated for a palme d'or award. the film also won best cinematography (ping bin lee), best sound effects (duu-chih tu) and best original film score (kai-yu huang and giong lim) at the 2001 golden horse film festival, where it was nominated for best leading actress (shu qi) and best original film song (composer/lyricist/performer giong lim, for the song "fly to the sky").