Just before the turn of the new millennium, a strange disease hits Taiwan that causes people to crawl on the floor and search for dark places.

Despite evacuation orders, tenants of a rundown apartment building stay put, including Hsiao Kang (Lee Kang-sheng).

He drills a small hole into the floor which comes down through the ceiling of the woman downstairs (Yang Kuei-mei).

The woman, who maintains her flooded apartment while stockpiling toilet paper, becomes annoyed by Hsiao Kang's antics on the other side of the hole.

The Hole was made for the 2000, Seen By... project,[1] initiated by the French company Haut et Court to produce films depicting the approaching turn of the millennium seen from the perspectives of 10 different countries.

[2] The film was directed by Tsai Ming-liang and starred two actors he had worked with before, Yang Kuei-mei and Lee Kang-sheng.

[5] It was nominated for the Palme d'Or award and won the FIPRESCI Prize (competition) "for its daring combination of realism and apocalyptic vision, desperation and joy, austerity and glamour."